A First Time For Everything
by Blood-Sucker-1428
Summary: The first time she met him, the first time he truly trusted her, the first time he really smiled at her, and more. A series of one shots - all related - of all the firsts Anthea and Mycroft experience in their relationship from meeting each other and beyond. Starts off professional and friendly, but will end up being Mythea.
1. The First Time She Met Him

**Author's Note:**** This is my first time writing for Sherlock so please forgive me if it's a bit off. I find myself in love with Anthea and Mycroft and needed to write some stuff for the so this is what happened – a series of one shots that interconnect telling a story of sorts between them. I hope you enjoy it! So please, if you want more don't be afraid to review.**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time She Met Him<strong>

Alice, her name was Alice back then. She was working in a low level job for an unimportant government department and it was going to go nowhere.

She turned up to work that day – not looking her best – in the same jacket from yesterday and a shirt out of the ironing pile that was piling up. Her best friend from home – Jamie – was visiting London for the week which meant some jobs were being neglected in favour of spending time with the girl, including going out last night where Jamie and Alice got hit on by every second man. Jamie had been Alice's roommate at boarding school and after Alice's parents had died in a car accident in their final year she was the closest thing Alice had to family. She hadn't thought much about going out until the earlier hours of the morning with Jamie – not when she could do her job in her sleep and nothing important ever happened.

That's why she was surprised when she walked into her tiny office to see her boss pacing with a file in his hand. Frowning at the presence of the annoying man who usually left her to her own devices, she walked past him and sat her bag on her desk.

"Ah, Alice there you are." The beady little man sounded exasperated. "I've been waiting for an hour for you to get here." He was stressed – way more than usual – he had sweated through the underarms of his shirt and work had just begun. Alice looked at her phone.

"I'm here the time I usually get here." She fought the urge to say it sarcastically even if she knew it would go over his head. He waved her off.

"Listen, we got a very important job this morning." He stepped closer to her, lowering his voice. He appeared, by the light shaking of the file in his hands, he was scared. "A job from high up." A pause. "_Very_ high up." Alice tilted her head – she was intrigued.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, some big wigs are looking for a breech in security that appears to be happening in a bunch of government branches. They're asking everyone to search for strange or reoccurring – authorised or unauthorised – visitors to the offices at any time on the dates in this file." Alice sighed, another video surveillance job, even if it were from high up.

"Why are you telling me?" She asked. "I just keep maintenance and upgrades on our technology. If it was from high up wouldn't you want to do it yourself?" He scowled in response – clearly wishing he'd did it himself.

"They asked for our most observant and detailed employee to do it." He rolled his eyes and Alice fought the scowl that threatened to cover her own face. "Normally I would want to do it myself but the orders are from a department I'd rather not disobey and you." He sighed. "You're good at noticing things." He held out the file begrudgingly and she accepted it.

It was true, Alice was good at noticing things. She called it people watching. A drama teacher in high school had once asked the class as homework to go out in public and make up life stories for people just by looking at them and the relationship they had with the people they were with. She and Jamie had started off by having a laugh at it – making up fantastical and hilarious ideas for their life stories – but as the weekend went on Alice found herself trying to get details right by looking carefully at their clothes and their facial expressions, and even their walk. After they started getting really detailed, Jamie would pretend to be taking a survey for school and go up to ask questions about what job they had and how many people lived in their residence – simple survey questions to see how close Alice was. She didn't have anywhere near a hundred perfect success rate but she was right more often than not and the pair had gotten a kick out of it. She couldn't help but smile smugly that this hobby had gotten her an advantage over her boss.

"You're to be done by tonight." Her boss said, not yet letting go of the file. "There is a number in there – apparently – that you are to text when completed and they will give you the address to take your findings to."

"Yes I can read the file, thankyou." Alice, tugged on the file.

"Don't disappoint us." And he finally let go of the file.

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><p>She had finished review the footage by 10pm and unfortunately – for all her time and effort – had found nothing too out of the ordinary. Still, she noted every person who was not normally meant to be there at that time – including herself last week when she got all the way home to realise she had left her keys in the office. If this were for some high up people it was best not to leave yourself of lest cause suspicion. She texted Jamie to tell her she was running late – apologized, and then texted the number with a blank text. It responded with a location a phrase the other person would say first to identify himself - the moon will be full soon – and one for her – yes, and the light will show all. She picked up everything she needed, closed down the office, and headed out to reach the meeting point within the hour.<p>

She'd been waiting in the car park, leaning on the hood of her car stifling yawns, behind this very specific, very non-descript building for quite some time when a man began to approach her. This man was clearly not the person she was supposed to be meeting, however, everything about him screamed it. He was blonde with scruffy hair sticking up at all angles, and dark eyes with equally dark circles under them. He'd been wearing a tanned leather jack with work pale jeans and old sneakers. It wasn't his appearance that tipped her off – these people could have sent a person looking like that for the lack of suspicion – it was everything else. He kept his head down low, his hands were in the pockets in his jacket where she suspected a firearm was. His feet were scuffing the ground and it felt like he was apprehensive. Alice eyed him suspiciously as she fought the urge to walk away from him – holding her ground.

"Hey." He said as he approached her, not quite making eye contact with her. She looked him up and down trying to commit all his features to memory.

"Hi." She kept her voice low and steady. He cleared his throat.

"I believe you have some information for me." Both of them keeping their faces neutral.

"Do I?" She said quietly, tilting her head curiously, brown hair falling in her face. "What makes you think that?"

"My office gave you a file this morning." He was getting closer and closer to looking at her eyes. From this angle she could tell he hadn't shaved that day.

"They gave me a file, did they, to _me_ specifically?" She held her cool as she watched his hands in his pocket shift. She was going to try and delay him – try to hold off until whoever was supposed to get here got here.

"Well, yeah. I think." That was a slip up if she had ever heard one.

"You think?" she asked and he looked up to her eyes. He was getting agitated. Still she kept going. "Did you or your office ask for me specifically?" His eyes narrow.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who could easily be replaced." He spat at her, again his pocket shifting. She fought the urge to back away.

"And you have a lot of uncertainty for someone whose file was full of very specific details." And that's when the gun was pulled out and held it to her face. She had gone a step too far. Swallowing hard, looking down the barrel of a gun, Alice still held her ground.

"Look sweetheart, just give me the file, alright?" She frowned, grip tightening on the full file.

"No." He laughed.

"No? I've got a gun held to your head. Why would you say no?"

"Because you didn't say the secret password?" What a time to be funny, Alice, really.

"What?" he said in disbelief, searching her eyes, trying to work out how this young girl had such nerve.

"I can only give this to someone with the secret password. I take my work very seriously." She smiled. If Alice learnt anything about herself tonight it was that she dealt with pressure in odd ways – such as cracking sly jokes.

"Oh come off it, what secret password?"

"The moon will soon be full." A voice came from just outside the building. Both Alice and the man's head whipped to the side to see a man in a dark black suit holding a gun. He couldn't be much older than Alice himself and looked straight out of a spy movie.

"Yes, and the light will show all."

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><p>A high security group had been called in not long after that moment and everything had been dealt with rather swiftly. The blonde had been taken away and the spy looking man had taken the file. Alice, though she had not experienced any physical harm, had found herself being fussed over by a group of what she figured were authorised paramedics. That's when she found herself being approached by one of the most interesting men she would ever meet in her entire life.<p>

He was standing near the paramedics, car, leaning on a black umbrella. He was wearing a grey three piece suit with a blue silk tie, and a brown overcoat. His grey eyes were piercing and appeared to take in everything around him, there was a level of confidence and intimidation about him that seemed to cause the paramedics to work faster. He looked upon her and smiled – clearly fake as it did not quite meet those very intelligent eyes. The smile alone fascinated her.

"Miss Clarke." He said, walking closer to her. His voice wearing a mask similar to the one she guessed he was wearing over his features. "I wanted to apologize for the mess you've found yourself in this evening, I'm sure you had better plans." She smiled at him, locked in by those fiercely smart eyes.

"It was no problem, sir." He looked her up and down once, taking his time to look her over. It was not the way men usually looked her up and down – not to take her in aesthetically – but to observe her, the way her drama teacher had asked people to do.

"I trust that Mr. Warrick has taken your statement from you?" His tone was so professional and perhaps a tint of boredom on the tip of it – as if this were entirely inconvenient.

"Yes, sir."

"And I trust you told him everything that you remember?" Alice frowned, he noticed it, eyebrow quirking ever so slightly.

"I told him everything sir, and I can tell you that I'm not under shock or so stressed out by the situation that I would have forgotten or exaggerated anything. I told him everything exactly as it happened." The mask his features were wearing shifted slightly as he looked Alice over again, this time taking more care, taking more in, _deducing_ her.

"That's very reassuring Miss Clarke, thank you." He turned to leave.

"Sorry to make you come out here, sir." He stopped and turned to face her again, curiosity sparking in those grey eyes. He stepped back, umbrella in front of him and both hands clasped on top of it.

"How do you know it's not my job to be out here?" He wasn't shocked, he was curious. Alice's smile widened slightly, for some reason very pleased to have caught the attention of the intriguing man.

"Your clothes mostly, particularly you overcoat… and your smile." She said with a shrugged. There was silence for a moment.

"Please, elaborate."

"Well I guess it was your suit first. It's really nice, like expensive nice, more than most of these people could afford. This and the way everyone seems to be scuttling around you means you're more important than them." He raised his eyebrows in slight amusement as his eyes quickly flashed to the people running around the place. "As for your overcoat – it doesn't match the rest of your clothes. You're very well put together and I don't think someone like you would leave the house with a brown overcoat wearing grey and blue, unless it was the first jacket you saw on your way out." He appeared very amused.

"And the smile?" She smiled, slightly embarrassed.

"Even though you have a certain level of authority about you and I'm sure you could scare the wits out of anyone there was something… gentle about your smile." If she had known him as she would in later years, she would have seen him being taken slightly aback by this. "I haven't come across many people with gentle smiles being security in the government. Not this high up. However, it doesn't reach your eyes. People in jobs like ours," meaning hers and everyone else there. "Don't need to cover emotions or fake them." _And you look like the type whose eyes sparkle when they smile_ she thought but didn't dare say. He looked her face over again, lips fighting off a smile.

"Very well done, Miss Clarke." He shifted the umbrella. "And do you want to know what I can tell by looking at you?" She fought the urge to gulp. "I can tell that while you are good at your job, you do not enjoy it or find it challenging – hence why you had no problem being out at a nightclub until… three in the morning. However, you risked your life because someone somewhere had informed you that this information – of which you found boring to do – was important to someone else. Why?" Oh he was better than she had ever wanted to be at this. She shrugged, unsure as to what her reasoning was herself.

"I like to see my work through." He softly chucked and reached into his pocket, handing her a card with only a mobile number on it.

"Go to work for the rest of the week, Miss Clarke, enjoy the mundane tasks and let this adrenaline wear off. On Friday, if you feel like your ambition is not larger than your ability, text that number." She stared at the card as he began to walk away. "Oh and by the way," She looked up to see him looking over his shoulder at her. "Apologize to your… old friend for my holding you."

He was good.


	2. The First Time She Heard His Name

**Author's Note:**** I was going to wait a little longer to post more but I got excited by the alerts and favourite that I couldn't hold it back any longer. I suppose this one is a little bit like a continuation of the last one so it's kind of nice to have them both up. This one isn't as long as the first one as that had to establish a lot about "Anthea" currently known as Alice but I hope you enjoy it just as much, if not better. Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time She Heard His Name<strong>

She turned up to his office on Monday morning for the job interview. A job interview for what, she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure why she even texted the number just after the third scotch on Friday night before Jamie left, Jamie had convinced her to text the "creepy smart guy" Alice had told her about. Jamie reminded Alice that she had made a big move to London in order to get ahead in life and that this could be her big chance. Would she really risk throwing it away? Wasn't the mystery of it part of the appeal? So she did and here she was. If Alice got kidnapped or murdered because of this, she'd find a way to get Jamie back, even from the afterlife.

The office was small and non-descript, wooden panels, and plane artwork. The man sitting behind the desk appeared slightly uncomfortable – this was probably not his usual job. He looked up from the paper work, seeing Alice, smiled and stood up.

"Can I help you?" He asked? Alice stepped further into the office.

"Yes I have a job interview." With who, she still did not know. It all seemed so suspicious she had never learnt that man's name but here she was. It could be some kind of scam but it could also change her life. The man's face flashed with recognition.

"Ah yes!" He leant over and pressed the button on the intercom.

"Mr. Holmes, I believe Miss Clarke is here." _Mr. Holmes_ then. Having a name was something. An image of the name in the three piece suit, the silk tie and the sharp eagle eyes flashed into her head. Yes, Holmes suited him.

"Thank you, James, send her in." James looked up with a smile and gestured to the door to his left. Alice formed a smile at him and walked towards the door – knocking gently and waiting for a reply before entering.

He was exactly as she remembered, from the sharp eyes and fake smile to the neat tailored three piece suit. Files littered his desk, a cup of tea on the side, and the computer quietly humming away. He stood up, walking around the desk to shake her hand. He hadn't offered her his hand before, now he did. She took it.

"Nice to see you again, Miss Clarke."

"Mr. Holmes." She said with a nod. He looked at her, eyes _almost_ twinkling at her keen observation as he walked back behind his desk. He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk for her to sit down before sitting down himself. He placed his hands together, fingers against his lips and observed her once again.

"So you think you're up for the challenge?" He hummed.

"That depends on what the challenge is, sir." He took in a breath and placed one of his palms on the desk.

"That is currently irrelevant. What is important right now, however, is I offered you an opportunity that could be perhaps out of your league and you took it. You would not be here if you thought you weren't up for a challenge, regardless of what it would be." Alice smiled slyly.

"What can I say, sir?" She spoke with amusement in her voice. "I'm bored." He chuckled in response but it did not reach his eyes. This mask intrigued her to no end.

"I said this was challenging, I did not say it would not be _boring_." He quirked an eyebrow. "The two are not as mutually exclusive as one might lead you to believe." He leaned forward. "There would be a lot of paper work and a lot of mundane errands." She wondered if he was challenging her.

"I suppose this is for the job that the man out front is currently doing." A tilt of the head imploring her to explain. "He looks uncomfortable at a desk. No fancy reasoning" Alice shrugged and Mr. Holmes gave a half smile that quickly faded away.

"He is indeed uncomfortable at a desk but he is trust worthy. I can't just have _anyone_ in this office as I am sure you have discovered for yourself."

"With the covert numbers and no names, I had no clue, sir." His eyes once again _almost _twinkled as he smiled in response. Did he find her charming, amusing, or annoying? His intelligence oozed from him and here she was, making the sarcastic jokes she made when feeling some pressure. "I don't mind doing paperwork and fetching coffee, sir, I'm quite efficient, as I'm sure you discovered for yourself."

"With the grades you got in university and how effective your notes on the security operation were, _I had no clue_, Miss Clarke." Alice smiled and stifled a laugh, her smile reaching her eyes like always. There was no malice in the joke, he did not find her annoying then, that was a relief. He leaned back in his chair, brushing his jacket, and continued on. "What I am looking for is a personal assistant and everything that goes along with it."

"Paperwork, phone calls, food, coffee, meetings, dry cleaning, et cetera." Alice interjected.

"Yes that." He sounded vaguely amused. "However my job is, well, more important and dangerous than it appears to be. There are many dangerous tasks that go along with being _my _personal assistant and you will be on call twenty four seven." He waited to see if she had any objections.

"If you've looked into my life, Mr. Holmes, then you know I don't have one." She was only half joking. "And I'm not afraid of danger." Mr. Holmes stared at Alice for a long time before speaking again.

"Do you know how many PA's have said that to me in my career so far and how many of them barely last a month?"

"I'm not most people, Mr. Holmes."

"No, you are not, Miss Clarke." A pause. "You will also have to go under an assumed name. Multiple of them, actually."

"I never liked my name anyway." Again she was only half joking. Too many people called her Alice in Wonderland. Her head was never in the clouds and she did not like the insinuation that it was. He was biting the inside of his lip in thought. She wondered what he could tell about her today – that she chose the best clothes she had and still looked out of place in this office? That while she was slightly intimidated she was not afraid of him like others might be? That she had drunk an extra coffee to be alert enough to keep up with a man this smart this early? That she was capable of this job?

"You do not need to give your office two weeks notice, I'll send them an email and you'll be let go immediately." He said as he stood up. "Please tell James to get your contract and phone from personnel and then tell him to go back to his usual position. I'd like you to start immediately." Alice stood up too. She was slightly flustered at the extreme speed of this but judging by this man she was not surprised. She had a feeling her life was changing. She had so many questions to ask, so many whirling around in her head, but the one that came out of her mouth was the most mundane possible and she almost shuddered at the sound of it.

"What do I call myself?" She asked. He seemed vaguely amused under that mask of his.

"What would you like to call yourself?" She bit her lip and thought for a moment, no name coming to her mind. After a minute she held her hand out for him.

"Mr. Holmes, I am your assistant; Anthea James." His gentle smile at this came so close to reaching his eyes it almost physically hurt her. He clasped her hand with his own.

"A pleasure to meet you, Anthea James. Mycroft Holmes."

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** It makes me cringe to think of anyone drinking scotch straight. I don't know how people do it. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it and my take on our dear Anthea.**


	3. Her First Mistake

**Author's Note:**** I graduated from university on Saturday! Yay! Four years. My gracious mood leads to a post of another chapter. As far as this one I don't think she's been working there long. A month or two tops? Any way I just wanted to give a huge thanks for those who comment, favourite, and add this to their alerts. You guys are the reason I'm super excited for this fic – instead of just being terrified writing for a new fandom – and want to post new chapters so quickly. So please, read, review, and most importantly enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>Her First Mistake<strong>

The destroyed USB sat on the desk separating her from her boss. His elbows were on the desk, fingers sat rigidly against his temples of his bowed head. A quick sweep of the room using her latest training indicate that any weapons were concealed securely and the umbrella was out of reach. She was in no immediate _physical _danger. He let out a meaningful sigh and looked up at Anthea. The silence continued as he folded his arms, scrutinizing her with his every look. Many times Anthea thought of speaking, she had never been in a situation this dangerous before, but thought better of it. Eventually he spoke.

"One task." The irritation oozed from his voice.

"Yes, I know sir."

"One simple task involving a _simple_ USB."

"I know." He pinched his nose with his nimble fingers and shut his eyes momentarily.

"All you had to do with it was hold it for twenty four hours and then take it to the exchange point."

"I know, sir."

"And what did you do?" Anthea gulped, she did not answer. Mr. Holmes opened his eyes, letting the anger seep out. If Anthea had discovered anything about her boss so far it was that he was far more dangerous when not wearing that emotion shielding mask of his. "What did you do, Anthea?"

"I left it in my jacket and put it in the washing machine."

"You put the USB through the washing machine." Anthea swapped her weight from foot to foot.

"To be fair, I'd have thought you would have used a waterproof device." He leaned forward, anger flashing more fiercely in those grey orbs.

"I'm sorry, do you doubt _me_?"

"No sir." She answered quickly. His fingers were back at his temples and the increasingly small office grew silent once again. There was no sound but the light hum of his computer and it was doing nothing to sooth Anthea – she had nothing to focus on but Mycroft – usually so cool – stewing in his own annoyance. He looked up and folded his hands together.

"I'd expect this from anyone else, but you, Anthea? You promised me you were better than this." Ugh, disappointment. Every person alive who remembers childhood remembers that the sting of disappointment hurts deeper that anger could ever hope to cut you. "You do realise that I vouched for you?"

"I know, sir." She stepped forward, trying to lock his eyes with her brown ones – trying to get him to hear her out. "I appreciate your confidence and I'm sorry." He seemed to be cooling. "I know your work habits, that can't be your only copy sir, I can still drop off the information." Something flashed across his face briefly, gone before she could identify it.

"Of course it's not my only copy, Anthea." He threw an arm up, gesturing at the computer. "I am not an imbecile. However, it is hidden behind figurative miles of encryptions and codes. It will take a long time to access, after which I'll need to set up encryptions on the USB itself. You formatted the previous USB, you should understand." Even with her knowledge of technology, it had taken Anthea a fairly decent amount of time setting up the types of security measures expected of Mr. Mycroft Holmes and his associates. She was spending time now learning new encryption and even hacking techniques. He did not have time for a screw up, and neither did she. Anthea gulped.

"I'm sorry, sir." She spoke only slightly higher than a whisper.

"Just," he gestured lazily to the door, not looking up at Anthea. "Go. I should have expected a mistake eventually." Slowly Anthea turned around and started for the door. "Please don't step foot in here again unless I call for you."

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><p>Anthea was at her computer working on two things simultaneously. She was filtering through the office's emails and ordering them from important and requiring immediate attention to least important, and she was also working on her code breaking skills using declassified cases involving cracked codes – trying to crack them herself. She was just closing a file and replacing it onto the bottom of her pile when she heard the tell-tale sound of a wooden umbrella handle being tapped twice on the edge of her desk. Her eyes only had to flicker up slightly to be met by a hand holding out a USB towards her, she looked up to meet Mycroft's eyes. His face was stern, lips tight in a straight line, eyebrows slightly lifted. She said nothing, only looked him in the eyes.<p>

"You have one hour to get this to the airstrip." He said firmly but not cruelly. Anthea nodded, taking the USB from his hand, fingers grazing, putting it in her handbag and getting up to walk away.

"An hour, got it." She grabbed her coat from the rack near the door.

"Run." She heard him behind her.

"Will do." She left the office.

"I don't mean figuratively. Literally run." She heard being yelled through the door.

"Running!" Anthea yelled back and started jogging through the hallways. No one would take notice of Mycroft Holmes' PA running through the halls. She would take her own car to the private airstrip – much faster than waiting for the driver.

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><p>The American contact was standing on the runway next to the small non-descript airplane. The pilot, she guess, would most likely still be in the cockpit, waiting to leave. The contact looked cold and irritated as he, hands in the pockets of his thick overcoat, tried not to shiver. He was wearing dark sunglasses, Anthea noted as she fought the urge to roll her eyes, he was only trying to emulate what he thought people like them dressed like – suits and dark sunglasses. To be fair, in her few months of working in this field Anthea didn't notice many people who didn't break this stereotype but perhaps they were all trying to fulfil some childhood dream of men in black being mysterious and powerful. At least Mycroft had the decency to be creative with his suits. She could feel the glare of the American as she approached.<p>

"You're late." He complained as soon as Anthea was in earshot. She looked at her blackberry for the time.

"It's two on the dot. I'm on time." She raised an eyebrow at him as she stopped in front of him.

"On time _is_ late." Up close she could hear the faintest southern accent. Anthea threw him a lopsided grin to counter his straight and narrow arrogance.

"Well, call me fashionably late, then." She said. "Thanks what you Yanks call it isn't it? When you turn up to meetings late? Like last time?" The American contact didn't even try to hide his scowl.

"You English and your fake manners. You think your pretty smile protects you?" He took a step forward. She scowled back digging into her handbag for the USB.

"No, I think the fact that both of our bosses want this done as smoothly as possible protects me." She held the USB out in front of her. He grabbed it and placed it in the breast pocket of his jacket.

"Good." He said and turned away. She turned away towards her car and 'tsk'ed.

"No 'thank you'?" She shook her head and smiled to herself. "Manners."

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><p>When she got back to the office it was empty. Placing her coat back on the rack she noted the absence of Mycroft's coat and umbrella. She took the time to make herself a cup of coffee and went make to multitasking at her desk. It was half an hour later when Mycroft re-entered the office, umbrella in one hand, phone in the other.<p>

"I believe the plans are on their way to you currently." He placed the umbrella in the holder, freeing a hand to start to take off his coat. "No, no issues occurred what so ever." He walked to stand in front of Anthea's desk and looked down and smiled at her. "I am looking at her right now which confirms that the item is on its way." Anthea nodded. "Ah yes. Perfectly fine." A pause. "Certainly. Next time you're in London on personal reason feel free to give Anthea or myself a call and we'll set that up." That was probably a lie. Anthea had already noticed Mr. Holmes' habit of turning down any social event unless there was something to be gained. She had yet to decide if he was antisocial of if he just didn't like people. Probably the latter, since he seemed to know the right buttons to push and when to push them. It was all quite impressive. After a polite goodbye he hung up the phone. He raised his eyebrows at Anthea and sighed slightly – the phone call was taxing.

"I trust I wasn't lying when I said it all went well." Mycroft said as he flicked through his phone. Anthea rolled her eyes and smiled.

"The American agent gave me some strife about being just in time but I charmed him with my beauty." Mycroft looked at Anthea flatly but smirked – she returned the smirk with her own.

"You got away with it this time, Miss James. I hope I won't have to cover for you again." Anthea shook her head.

"I'm here to stay, sir." She smiled and he smiled warmly at her with that gentle smile that still did not quite reach his eyes.

He went back to his office and Anthea went back to work.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong> **Hope this is still to the standard of the previous chapters!**


	4. The First All-Nighter

**Author's Note:**** Thank you so much guys for all the kind words regarding this fic! Seriously, you have no idea how happy it makes me that you respond so nicely to my first venture into writing for this fandom. All the subscriptions and favourites are so much appreciated. You just make me want to write more than I already do. Ok now this chapter is almost the polar opposite of last chapter… **_**almost**_**. I think it is something that would happen sooner rather than later so I hope you like it. Read, review (and make me blush with your kind words once again), and most importantly, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First All-Nighter<strong>

Anthea discovered a very important lesson about her job this week – the most dangerous tasks were not the ones on location – nor were they the ones that threatened Mr. Holmes' life – they were domestic negotiations. As it turned out, a pair of squabbling Brits with power usually ended up causing the worst headaches. This particular negation between powers had begun early Wednesday morning – 6:30am to be precise.

When Anthea arrived at work at 7:30am Mr. Holmes was already in his private office talking on both his mobile and the landline – line two – simultaneously. She had only walked in to give him a cup of tea – to which he swatted away – and then decided to leave him in peace until the issue had been dealt with. Anthea had not been here long, but long enough to know what work could be done easily and efficiently with no input from the great Mr. Holmes himself. She went through all the emails as they came, cleared todays scheduled meetings and rescheduled them, checked upon the progress of certain low level missions she had been given the access to supervise in Mr. Holmes' absence, then checked her private email before lunch break.

It was 12.30pm when she decided to head off for a coffee and something decent to eat other than the banana she had eaten when she left that morning. Before she left, however, Anthea thought she'd brave to stick her head into the lion's den. Anthea rapped on the door lightly with her knuckles and looked through. Mycroft was now sitting at his computer with the landline to his ear. He looked up at her – still talking on the phone and merely raised his head. That was him asking her what she wanted as politely as possible in this situation – Anthea had already learnt that. Anthea held up a hand and pointed to her wrist with a neatly manicured nail as if pointing at a watch. Mr. Holmes' grey eyes flicked down to where the time would be displayed on the computer screen that was currently spilling a blueish light onto his face. He looked up and with a half-smile nodded. That meant go ahead. She mirrored his response, her own half smile and nod, and went in search of nourishment.

When she returned from lunch almost thirty minutes later to the second, she was greeted by the sound of Mycroft Holmes' slightly raised voice. Frowning to herself for the moment, Anthea thought it would be best not to announce her return. Instead, she decided to let him know that she was back in another way. She coughed loudly as she walked past his door to the little kitchenette and turned the kettle on. Anthea had no plans on making tea or coffee – she had an amazing latte at that close by café – but the noise should demonstrate that a friendly presence was within the office. Walking back to the desk and sitting down, she tapped on it with her fingernails a few times. Anyone should have heard her by now – someone who proved himself to be as absurdly perceptive as Mycroft Holmes would probably be getting annoyed with her by now. Satisfied by this Anthea got back to work.

For once Anthea found herself done with all her daily tasks by 6:00pm. This was strange, very strange. She was never ready to get out of here by now – not even by 7:30pm. She barely made it out of here earlier than 9:00pm on some days. She tapped her fingers – lightly this time – against the desk as she tried to ponder her next move. She could go home but this early that didn't feel right. She could see if her boss had anything for her to do but his lack of appearance and orders was a tell-tale sign that he had not completed whatever the negotiations were. She bit her lip and stared at the desk. With nothing left to do but not willing to leave yet she may as well just do what she would do at home while at the office – while still monitoring the emails, of course. She got out her phone, answered a text from Jamie, then leant over and pulled a book from her bag. _Wuthering Heights_ the beginning was slow and Mr. Holmes had already raised an eyebrow at her upon seeing it in her handbag but the artistic soul within Anthea couldn't help herself.

Anthea checked the time on her phone. Oh good, it was past 8:00pm now, she could probably leave and not feel guilty about it. She shut down the computer, put her bookmark in place, and packed up. Before leaving she walked over and knocked on the door. She heard a faint "mmm?" on the other side and took that as her cue to enter.

Mycroft's black jacket had been abandoned on the small black leather couch in the office, and his red tie had been loosened ever so slightly. He was sitting at the computer, one had resting within his hair, his mobile close by to the freed hand. He was so focused on what he was doing he did not look away from the screen.

"Mr Holmes, I'm heading home for the evening sir." Anthea spoke quietly – the way one does at a church or in the principal's office – not being told to be quiet but just feeling the need to be. His steel eyes flickered briefly to her, briefly to the time on the screen, and back to whatever he was reading in the middle of the screen.

"Yes, alright Miss James, good evening." There was no tone in his voice what so ever, no normal half smile, just total focus. Any other person Anthea would be worried. She smiled but her brows furrowed, not like he'd notice either.

"Goodnight, sir." She closed his door when she left.

* * *

><p>When Anthea had first sat down at her desk in the morning something just didn't feel right. She paused in her chair – frowning slightly- and looked around. Then she spotted it, the offending reason that left her feeling put out. Her white coffee mug that she had been using yesterday. It wasn't that she had forgot to put it in the sink, that was not an uncommon circumstance. What was uncommon, however, was that it was still there this morning. Mycroft, whether he left before or after her, always got to work before Anthea. She'd discovered within the first week of working there that if she left a coffee mug out it would be either sitting in the sink or drying on the dish wrack by the time she got to work. It was a curious little habit her boss seemed to have and it often made her wonder if he had other things like that. She'd like to imagine him stepping out of his office, seeing the mug, and making that 'tsk' noise of his, rolling his eyes, before picking it up by the tips of his fingers around the sides. Did that mean he had stayed all night? She looked over to the door that lead to his private office and hummed to herself. Surely not, perhaps he'd just been too tired to notice the coffee mug. That was an absurd idea, though not entirely impossible. Anthea sighed to herself and decided to start work on the emails that were probably already piling up.<p>

At 11:00am the lack of Mycroft's appearance from the office, her own curiosity and her lack of patience got the better of her. She walked over to the door, lightly knocked and let herself in. His jacket was still in the same place on the couch, his tie had been loosened more, his cufflinks were abandoned on the table and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hair was slightly messy. He was talking down the phone in one of his calming tones but there was an edge to it, as he held the back of his free hand to his forehead – eyes shut. Anthea pursed her lips together as she viewed the sight. Mycroft Holmes was a workaholic, yes. Mycroft Holmes had apparently had forgotten to go home. She walked back to her own space and shut his door, leaning her back against it. Anthea had never been in this situation before, she had only ever had lazy, arrogant bosses who loved to delegate before, not one that pulled all-nighters. Did his brain just keep running until he decided to shut it off? What if it ran out of energy? Out of fuel. Her mind flickered back to the time her and Jamie had been spending the week off at Jamie's house studying for final exams. They were pulling an all-nighter for their English study when at 3am Jamie's mum had come in with some snacks for them. It had made Anthea – or Alice as she is in her memories – feel so light hearted and made her miss her own mother. Snapping out of her memory with a shake of her head Anthea grabbed her handbag and ran out of the office.

When she next knocked on Mycroft's door she was greeted with a muffled reply of what she guessed was 'come in'. She entered to see him in a moment of respite – no computer, no phone, just his head resting in his hands. That's why the reply was muffled. She approached the desk and placed the plate in between them, square in front of her boss. He lowered his hands and examined the item in front of him. There had been many choices of sandwiches and Anthea had played it quite safe really – ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato on rye bread. He hid his opinion behind that irritating mask as all he did was raise an eyebrow at the sandwich and looked up at Anthea, waiting for her to explain.

"You were here all night sir, you haven't emerged once. You need to eat something." She kept her tone as careful and monotone as possible. She may have woken the sleeping lion.

"I hired you to be my assistant, not my mother." His face remained the same but the sarcasm oozed.

"And I thought you were a government official, not a petulant child who needed looking after." She cringed at herself. There's that making jokes when under pressure thing again. Anthea really needed that looked at. He scoffed at her but then levelled his gaze onto the sandwich. Mask or no mask Anthea could tell he was tempted. "Eat it, and then you can have these." She placed the white paper bag with six cookies in it onto his desk next to the plate. His eyes widened ever so slightly – the tiredness letting that mask slip ever so much out of place. She'd already picked up on his habit for sweets. "Eat the carbohydrates before going for the sugar rush. We don't need you to crash." Anthea said, cocking her own eyebrow as she eyed her boss carefully. Mycroft made something of a sniff noise in response and waved her off.

"Yes, yes, alright. Thank you, Miss James." She returned back to her office feeling quite pleased.

The phone calls had resumed not long after that and had seemed to stop two hours later. Deciding to check on her surprisingly juvenile boss Anthea knocked on the door and entered.

"Yes, Anthea?" Mr Holmes was in the middle of pulling his shirt sleeves back down. God forbid he leave the office looking the way he had.

"I take it that negotiations are over, sir?" He finally did that half smile that, though it did not reach his eyes like she so wanted to see, was reassuring.

"Yes, and quite successfully so. No death threats to be weary of." He raised his eyebrows and pulled a sardonic smile this time. She couldn't help but let out a polite chuckle. Anthea noticed the empty plate pushed to the side and the lack of paper bag anywhere and couldn't help but feel slightly smug.

"I'm glad to hear it, sir." She said, stepping further into the office. "Let me just clear this for you."

"Thank you, my dear." She heard him say as she started to turn away. "Whatever would I do without you?"

"Starve, evidentially." She muttered. As she closed the door to his private office behind her she heard a single laugh.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Author's Note<strong>**: What do you think? How do you feel their relationship is developing during these first few months? Also, in case its not the same in other countries, we in Australia, particularly in high school and universities, call staying up all night or until like 4 am to finish a report or assignment "pulling an all-nighter". Well where I am we do. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :).**


	5. The First Time He Stood Up For Her

**Author's Note****: I am extremely grateful for everyone who expresses interest in this one way or another and wanted to send a big thanks to anyone who reviews, alerts, and/or favourites. This is up rather quickly because why not? I had this ready I might as well post it sooner rather than later. Thanks once again guys and please let me know what you think of this chapter!  
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**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time He Stood Up For Her<strong>

For once Anthea and Mr. Holmes were both away from their office with hardly any work on them. Well, they had their phones and were checking periodically, but that barely counted. It had been a long day so it had been decided that the pair that occupied the small mostly wooden office would have a lunch break outside of a café rather than couped up at their respective desks. They barely spoke of anything but work but just being outside of the room that seemed to shrink on you as the worked built up, was respite enough.

"This was a good idea, sir." Anthea said as she cut up a piece of chicken in her Caesar salad. "I feel like I can breathe again." He 'mm'ed in response as he, leaning back in his chair, sipped from the fresh cup of tea. Her mouth had practically watered at the looked of the salad on the menu and she was not let down by the quality. Mr. Holmes had been more interested in a decent pot of tea than the food, trying to be healthy apparently, but he'd ordered a seared chicken breast with a side salad anyway.

"A change of scenery can do wonders for the soul." He placed the cup down on the saucer with a light 'ting'. Anthea looked up from her salad, eyeing her boss carefully. A smile threatened her lips but she managed to hold it back to a small quirk of her lip.

"Mr Holmes, are you getting poetic on me?" There was a scoff as Mycroft raised an eyebrow at his personal assistant.

"Hardly." He said, boredom and sarcasm being quite natural to his façade. "I do believe it was you who quoted Shakespeare in a meeting last week." He lazily pointed at her accusingly. Anthea shrugged sheepishly with an equally as guilty look on her face.

"You'd be surprised at how often Prospero from the Tempest reminds me of some of those people. I couldn't keep quiet anymore." Anthea looked down to her food and sniffed. "A lot of them should be sent to sea." Mycroft sighed, picking up the tea cup again.

"I suppose it is my fault for hiring an assistant who learnt her observation skills from _high school_ theatre classes." He rolled his eyes and Anthea laughed. She should have never told him that – it was ammunition he could use at his will. Anthea opened her mouth to retort -.

"Carrie!?" Anthea looked over Mycroft's shoulder to see a tall, lean, man approaching. The man with brown hair and brown eyes wore a tight white t-shirt and jeans. Anthea could feel the blood drain from her face. This was the last thing she needed. The man didn't even live near this part of the city, why did he turn up around here?

"Oh no." She said in an almost sing-song voice as her ex-boyfriend approached. Mycroft didn't even acknowledge any change of the situation, only continued to sip his tea and neutral his face. Why did they decide to go outside again? What was wrong with that little office with the empty fridge?

Why she had given this guy a false name, Anthea had no idea. Perhaps it was because she had started dating him two weeks after she started working for Mycroft and was trying to get used to the idea of using different names and was using this as practice. Maybe it was out of security for her job – if they broke up it was better if he didn't know who she was. Maybe it was out of the early onset of loyalty to Mycroft. Either way she knew it wouldn't last. He was pretty, very pretty with his full lips and chiselled jaw, but he was stupid. Anthea couldn't do stupid for longer than a few months. She sighed as he approached, his hair styled in a way to make it look like bed hair but probably took longer for him to style than it took Mycroft to put on all the layers to those meticulous suits.

"Hi Damion." She sighed, looking down at her food. She could tell by his eyes he was angry – a fire hidden behind those dim witted hazel eyes. On one hand, why shouldn't he be? It had only been a week. On the other hand, he broke up with her, and she had never understood when the dumper was more upset than the dumpee.

"Is that all you have to say to me?" He asked, shrugging. Mycroft reached over the table for the tea-pot, unperturbed. "How about 'I miss you'? Or do you not care?" Anthea sighed again.

"You broke up with me Damion, why should I miss you?" She spoke in the same bored voice that she had greeted her ex in. With a deep breath She shrugged. "I'm too busy to dwell on things Damion, maybe you could give it a shot some time." The boy barely flinched.

"Then what's this?" He asked, gesturing to the table. "You're always too busy to have lunch with me but here you are." Anthea put her cutlery down softly, folder her hands together, and looked up at Damion.

"I don't have time to take a lunch away from work, Damion." The same tone. "I'm doing work here." She nodded to her blackberry on the table. Damion eyed the blackberry momentarily before scanning the table, coming across a file on Mycroft's side, and then finally eyeing Mycroft himself. Oh, great, the bull had a new target. Mr. Holmes merely raised an eyebrow looking bored, and crossed his legs.

"So this must be your boss who keeps you for inhumane hours." Mycroft clicked his tongue and sipped his tea. Anthea watched them both carefully. "She's at the office until God knows what time, never has time for me. She promised to spend Sundays with me but then she gets one call from you and she's off."

"Damion." Anthea interrupted.

"No, Carrie. She has a life, you know. Just because you don't doesn't mean no-one else does. She's not some lap dog." Mycroft put his cup down, folded his arms across his chest and looked up at Damion with raised eyebrows.

"Damion, stop being ridiculous." Anthea scolded, raising her voice ever so slightly. She was starting to feel embarrassed and she did not like that.

"No, Carrie." He held a hand straight in Anthea's face. Anthea and Mycroft both eyed it with reflecting reacts of disgust. This was not acceptable. "He's the reason we're not together." Oh, and neither was that.

"Oh, that's humorous." Mycroft's amused voice came. Damion's eyes narrowed and he stepped closer to Mycroft.

"What was that?" He threatened. The larger man, standing up was doing his best to be intimidating, but even sitting down with a cup of tea, legs crossed and umbrella to his side, Mycroft Holmes looked quite calm and very amused. There is something very intimidating about calm – much more so than fury – and Anthea loved it.

"You heard me, did you not? Unless humorous is too large of a word for you. It means funny, dear." Anthea had to fight off a laugh as she was the fury build up in Damion's face as Mycroft looked as cool as ever. "Carrie here was told of the 'ungodly' hours her job entails before she accepted it. She was ambitious enough to take the position regardless. This was, I believe, before she met you as when I interviewed her she was clearly single. Therefore you have no right to complain about her lack of availability. She does have a life, one she chooses to spend furthering her mind and assisting me in important matters you could not possibly comprehend, and not stuck with you doing whatever mundane activities you enjoy such as watching men throw a ball around on TV or the latest blockbuster action film." Mycroft rolled his eyes and reached for his cup of tea. It was to his lips before Damion even opened his mouth to speak. "Oh for goodness sake, leave now before I have you shipped off to Cambodia quicker than you can string a sentence together." Damion took a step forward looking as if he was trying to think of an argument in his head, he looked at Anthea who gave him a fiercely angry face and gestured with her head for him to get lost. He walked off in a huff, Mycroft rolled his eyes, and Anthea couldn't hold back a laugh.

"That was amazing, sir." She said, smiling to herself, as she picked up her cutlery to continue her salad. The chicken would be cold now, how disappointing.

"Please choose your perspective mate better next time." Mycroft sighed into his cup. "I'd rather not argue with another simpleton who does not respect your right to do whatever pleases you and would prefer you stay at home tending to his equally simple children." Anthea looked up from her salad, eyeing her boss.

"Unless that's what I want."

"Unless that's what you want." He echoed with a curt nod.

"Because it's a perfectly acceptable choice for a woman."

"Of course it is, my mother chose to do so and I appreciate it."

"But I don't want to."

"Of course you don't want to."

"And you appreciate that I'd rather go through your emails?"

"Most definitely."

She looked up at him and smiled slyly which he mirrored in return – eyes _almost_ sparkling.

"Although _my_ mother wasn't raising simpletons."

Anthea almost choked on cos lettuce as she laughed.

* * *

><p>Sitting at her kitchen bench late that night, thinking to herself, Anthea picked up her blackberry and shot a quick text to her old friend.<p>

_My boss was so cool today. – A_

_Why? What happened? Jamie x_

_He basically told Damion to get lost in the most fancy way possible. – A_

_:o Way to go creepy smart guy! Jamie x_

_Haha, I know, right? - A_


	6. Their First Argument

**Author's Note:**** Happy Valentines Day to all of my lover reviewers, followers and passer-bys. I hope you all, singles and couples alike, had a nice day. I spent most of Friday and today fighting writers block. As far as this chapter goes, I almost skipped it as it didn't come out quite how I wanted but its important for a couple of reasons so I decided to keep it. So hopefully all you lovely people giving me such lovely reviews will like it. Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>Their First Argument<strong>

It was a particularly slow Tuesday and Mr. Holmes was having lunch with some dignitary and his wife – he'd been avoiding it for months but had found himself without an excuse. He had to do the unthinkable and socialise for no political gain. If he didn't then he risked losing a hand he may need a favour from one day and that was absolutely unthinkable.

Anthea was walking in the underground car park, answering some text messages from Jamie, as she walked towards one of Mycroft's town cars where his driver would be waiting. Most of the time, if Mr. Holmes was at some event that Anthea couldn't attend, she would accompany the driver to pick him up in order to fill him in on the details of anything that he had missed. That is of course if Anthea wasn't doing something more important – which today she was not.

As she approached the car she looked up to see the driver smile and nod at her. She returned it as he opened the door for her and she climbed in the back. Once the car left the parking lot Anthea leaned forward to speak to the driver, her blackberry still in her hand.

"Aren't you always Mr. Holmes' driver?" She asked him. The older gentleman, greying around the edges of his otherwise black hair, smiled at her through the rear view mirror.

"That I am, miss. I'm Walter, Mr Holmes' business hours driver." Anthea smiled politely. She should probably make nice with the driver, if she were to stick around and spend indefinite amounts of time with him.

"I'm uh-" She stopped, trying to think of what specific name to give the driver. She could give him any name she wanted but then Mycroft would have to remember to call her that in the car and it could cause an issue for the different guests they'd pick up. "Well, Mr. Holmes calls me Anthea James." The driver, Walter, smiled with warm hazel eyes.

"I don't seem to see you on Wednesday afternoons, Anthea." He was concentrating on turning, looking through the mirrors. Anthea leaned back into her seat.

"Yeah, Wednesdays are currently my training day for the more intricate details of the job." Anthea kept her tone light, joking around as to not give away any deep details. She didn't know what she was allowed to say around who yet.

"Oh yeah, and what are you doing right now?" The older man asked. Anthea laughed to herself.

"Basically physical training with all those buff men and women you picture in sunglasses with ear pieces in that push people away from limos. It's all very "The Bodyguard'." Walter chuckled. "And then there's me who's just itching to get back to the office and sit back down with my computer and my phone." Walter then laughed a heartier laugh and it made Anthea want to grin.

"I know what you mean. I did similar training back in the day." Anthea frowned to herself at this statement. She leaned forward slightly as she considered asking what he meant but decided best not to question it right now and sat back in her seat. Best not to question why the people around Mycroft Holmes did what they did, not until she was more secure in her job at least.

A lull lapsed and Anthea went back to her blackberry to scan for any important emails that may have arrived. Once done with this she decided to do what she was being partly trained to do and probe for information. "So, Walter?"

"Yes, Miss James?" He asked and she felt slightly embarrassed by being called this by someone who wasn't her superior.

"I hear my job seems to have a revolving door of sorts." She heard a deep chuckle from the back of the head rest.

"I guess you could say that." There was humour in his voice. It was nice to speak to someone who actually expressed emotion. Anthea leaned forward and flashed the most charming smile she could manage.

"Can you tell me about some?" She said in her cheekiest voice and crinkled her nose. She could see Walter looking at her through the rear view mirror.

"Well, the man before you told another government worker something confidential that wasn't supposed to be known by anyone. He sort of disappeared – I don't know what happened there." Anthea whistled in response. "The young man before that just cracked under the pressure and couldn't handle the high stakes and secrecy of it. But he was a good lad and Mr. Holmes found him a job in a department that was more his pace." Anthea tilted her head to the side as she pictured this.

"Oh well, that's nice." She hummed more to herself than anything.

"And the woman before that." Walter made a single laugh. "Well she was hired as a favour to another fellow and she made the mistake of hitting on Mr. Holmes. It wasn't subtle, either." Anthea gasped before it quickly turned into a fit of laughter.

"Oh no, she didn't!?" Anthea chuckled. "What happened to her?"

"Not sure, actually. Drove her to the airport and never had to pick her up again." He didn't sound surprised on upset, he sounded light.

"Timbuctoo or Sri Lanka?" She joked and crinkled her nose again. "What about you, what type of turnover is there in your job." Walter hummed in thought.

"None actually." Anthea raised an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"Really?" Her voice came out higher than she intended as she probed for more information.

"I've been Mr. Holmes' chief driver since he was a kid that a lot of people were upset about calling 'sir'." Anthea couldn't help but smile, managing a 22 year old Mycroft Holmes – fresh out of university – having power over many senior staff. She actually enjoyed the image of all these men either being impressed, put off by, or terrified of this young genius who could tell you your life story just by glancing at you. These days he had too much of a reputation for Anthea to see anyone's initial reaction to him.

"Climbed up the ladder quickly, did her?" She could see a warm smile through the mirror.

"With that skill set, you bet." Anthea leaned back in her seat and checked her messages. Jamie was forwarding Anthea the text argument she and her boyfriend had, and an agent was informing Anthea that they needed more funding to complete a surveillance mission. _Answer work first and wait for the incoming flood of texts from Jamie to stop before reading them all._

"If you know him well enough, how much do you want to bet he had a horrible time this afternoon?" she joked without looking up from her phone.

"You bet he did." Anthea didn't need to look up to know that Walter was smiling.

* * *

><p>The car wasn't parked outside the residence long when Mr. Holmes got into the car in a huff. Anthea gave him a side glance then looked back at her phone. He looked as prim and proper as he always did, in his tweed suit, but his grip on his umbrella was tighter than usual and his face was in a straight line.<p>

"Take me to the club and then return Miss James to the office." He spoke with a breathy sigh. Walter started the car without a word. He wanted to go to that club – the Diogenes – where no one would speak. He craved silence. Anthea looked over at her boss and gave him a small, sympathetic smile.

"That bad, huh sir?" She asked. He let out a breath, looking over to Anthea, critically observing her. He looked out the window with a click of his tongue and then looked back at Anthea.

"Tell me," He begun, "Feel free to answer also, Walter. Is there anything about the way I present myself" He gestured with a lazy head to himself – top to bottom "Or anything about my persona that says 'Let me hold your newborn offspring'?" Anthea's face cracked with a small smile and she tried not to laugh. "Because that is precisely what I was forced to do, twice, regardless of how many times I tried to graciously decline to the ghastly offer." Anthea could picture it perfectly in her head – this dignitary and his wife completely proud of their first born child thinking that it was a privilege for anyone to hold it and Mycroft fiercely trying to decline without appearing rude.

"I understand, sir." She spoke as she rescheduled the rest of her day into her planner to accommodate for Mr. Holmes being at the club rather than the office. "I have no clue what to do with babies. I hate it when people try to make me hold them." Mycroft scoffed and looked out the window. Anthea looked into the rear view mirror to make eye-contact with Walter and give him a crooked smile. After a moment of silence Mr. Holmes turned to face forward again.

"I just don't understand how incontrovertibly stupid people are. The useless questions are unbelievable." Anthea kept her smiled but frowned slightly. "How does society even function when no one can make simple observations?"

"Sir?" Anthea asked. A pause.

"Let me put this in a way that even you can understand. You're what most people would consider a reasonably intelligent girl." Anthea felt the smile fall off her face slightly but kept herself from raising an eyebrow as she kept her eyes on the screen of her blackberry. "When you were attending university I'm certain you were quite the listener and you understood concepts quite well. Do you remember when a lecturer explained a concept quite clearly but then there would be at least one person who asked the most ridiculous and mundane questions, most of which could be inferred from what you've already heard?"

"Sure." Anthea spoke slowly and clearly.

"Well that is what everyone and every day feels like to me." He said with an audible sigh. "Nothing but mundane and unnecessary questions from people who should not be given as much power and influence as they have somehow managed to fall into."

"I get it, sir, but that's why I just mind my own business and ignore them." Mr. Holmes scoffed.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand." He said as his eyes quickly looked over the interior of the car. "There are very few people who could possibly understand." She watched as he twirled the umbrella side to side. Anthea took a deep breath. "The next time I have to explain the difference between a simile and a metaphor I may just fire the director of education for failing the kingdom bitterly." And must have let a noise escape her lips, or perhaps it was just the look on her face, because next thing she knew Mycroft was tilting his head at her. "Do you have something to say, Miss James?"

"No, sir." She spoke carefully.

"Now, now, don't censor yourself." He gestured forward for her to speak but the condescension in his voice told her otherwise,

"I like my job sir, I don't want to risk it by speaking out of line." She heard him let out a single laugh.

"By all means, Anthea dear, don't censor yourself out of fear or sounding stupid or risking your employment. Consider this your immunity." A few seconds passed by as Anthea weighed up her options.

"Sir, some people have to work hard to gain their education – not everyone has a natural ability to just get things, especially not like you." Anthea was cursing herself for not biting her tongue. It wasn't a horrible comment but it was speaking out of line – something she had yet to test her limits with. He looked over to her, raising an eyebrow and looking her up and down once more.

"And I should be persecuted for their natural stupidity?" He spoke in such a condescending term that Anthea felt herself not being able to hold back. Still, she kept her eyes on the screen of her phone.

"No, sir." She spoke. "But a certain level of understanding should be given when dealing with people. Just because someone doesn't understand how to cc properly in an email doesn't mean I should get angry at them, and just because I or any other person can't tell the make of a gun from the bullet hole doesn't mean you have the right to look down your nose at us." She heard a sniff and looked over to see Mr. Holmes looking out the window. "I don't mean to speak out of term sir, but you seem to forget that you're an exception, not the rule." A pause. "And that was a metaphor." There was that sarcasm issue again.

The rest of the car ride was silent. When they arrived at the club Mycroft muttered a thank you to Walter and opened the door to leave.

"I'll text you if anything imperative comes up, sir." Anthea said, keeping professional.

"Yes, thank you." Hs voice was quiet and bored sounding as he got out and closed the door. Anthea let out a deep breath and leaned forward to Walter.

"So, Walter, what happened to the last PA?" She joked. "'Oh, she told Mr. Holmes off. They never found her body'." Walter chuckled but did not respond.

* * *

><p><em>Men, Jamie. Who needs them? Boyfriends, bosses, they're all the same. – A.<em>

_Tell me about it! We should run away together to a private island where no one would ever find us – Jamie xx_

_Give me half an hour at work and I can probably find the perfect location. – A._

_Hahahah! Great – Jamie xx_

_Wait, you were joking right? – Jamie xx_

_What do you DO again? – Jamie xx_

_Alice? – Jamie xx_

_I work for a minor government official, Jamie. Of course I was joking. – A._

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><p>Wednesday proceeded without any major complications – the duo acted on business as usual. There seemed to be more of an air of formality between them that had slipped slightly in the few months Anthea had been working for Mr. Holmes so far but perhaps that needed to be built back up. Perhaps if she did not mention anything and he didn't then her job could be safe. They could forget that he was having a bad day and that she had been foolish enough to open her mouth and express her own opinion.<p>

Thursday morning Anthea went straight to work once again as if nothing had happened, ready with every professional layer up in place. She stood in the kitchenette, stretching and cracking her exhausted bones while she waited for the tea to brew. After the tea was ready Anthea made it the way Mycroft liked it. She walked into his private office and placed it on his desk in the usual position.

"Thank you." He spoke, not looking up from the file. Anthea turned to leave the room silently as she more often than not did until she saw him reach his hand out to gesture for her to stop moving. "Anthea, stay for a moment." He nodded to the two seats in his office. "Take a seat." Apprehensively Anthea walked over to the same chair she sat in the first time she was ever in this office and sat down. Mycroft closed the file he was working on, folded his hands and placed them on top of the file on his desk. "Regarding Tuesday afternoon-" He began, Anthea raised a hand and interrupted him.

"Yes, sorry about that, sir." She said. "You're my employer and I spoke out of line. I'm sorry." She watched as a small smile was placed on his face and he shook his head.

"No, thank you, I appreciate your apology, but that is not what I wished to speak about." A brief silence as they looked each other up and down. "We've never discussed it, but I assume it's quite obvious that I am different to most people." Anthea rolled her eyes and half smiled.

"You mean that you're a genius? You don't exactly hide it, sir." His fake smile widened ever so slightly.

"Quite." He hummed. Taking a breath, Mr. Holmes continued with his original point. "But with the benefits of such a thing comes the detriments." A pause as silver concerned eyes looked into her brown eyes. "You do understand that I don't consider you an idiot?" Anthea let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding. She shut her eyes and shook her head.

"Before Tuesday you've never made me feel like an idiot, sir." She spoke lightly. Mr. Holmes eyes knotted together.

"Even so." He took a breath and pulled the tea closer to him, taking a sip. He was having trouble wording what he wanted to say. "Most days I can easily manoeuvre safely around the general public. Other days…" He winced visibly. "Other days I find dealing with people overwhelming. This is going to happen from time to time and I want you to understand that it is nothing against you, personally." Anthea smiled.

"I know that sir, I'll try not to take it as an attack."

"You're proving yourself to be quite the valuable asset – I wouldn't want the reason for your departure to be due to one of my own actions."

"Like I said, sir." Anthea stood up. "I don't plan to go anywhere." Anthea turned to leave.

"Wait." Mycroft's calm voice reached her ears and she turned back around.

"During lunch break perhaps you'd like to go pick up some food and bring it into my office to discuss yesterday's training." Anthea raised an eyebrow and placed a cheeky smile on her lips.

"Mr. Holmes, I would not like to burden you with my boring and mundane complaints." He mirrored her smile.

"Ah but Miss James, we are to discuss something that I, myself, despise;" He raised his eyebrows. "Legwork." He said with a sigh.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note<strong>**: Inspired by those days everyone has where your thoughts can be summed up as "I hate everything". Still, I hope it fits in nicely. Thanks for reading :).**


	7. The First Gift

**Author's Note:**** So many new followers to this story! Guys, I'm overwhelmed, it's amazing. I'm so glad so many people are into my first go at writing for this fandom! Please, leave more reviews. You have no idea how much your feedback both excites me and humbles me. Thank you so much guys! Really. I hope you like today's chapter, I wrote it after the second chapter but have been saving it for the right spot chronologically. Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><strong><span>The First Gift<span>**

Mr. Holmes had been in a meeting all morning in his office while Anthea sat at her desk filling in the paperwork for previous missions. Well, when she said she was filing the paperwork, really she was editing out all the details that the officials really didn't need to keep on record. If anyone wanted some of the more gory details it would be up to Mycroft to decide whether they needed to know that or not. When she finished on that she moved onto her emails, filtering through them as she always did, the important ones first, invites to some event that Mr. Holmes would avoid at all costs last. The schedule for today was surprisingly light considering that the rest of the week had been a lot of hands on work and the duo had a lot of office work to catch up on. Most interestingly, the evening was kept free. Anthea wasn't sure why, but really, should she complain that she'd get to go home at seven at night for once. Maybe she could sit down and read something for once. You know, with the news on in the background, just in case something important happened. Jamie had made fun of Anthea when she'd said she had the news on most of her time at home now.

"_Why in hell would you have the news channel on all the time?" _She had giggled as she spoke on the phone. Some reality show was on the background on her end.

"_I need to know if something happens. What if something crucial happens? I'd rather be halfway out the door before my phone starts ringing."_

It was 11am when Mr. Holmes and whatever important official – Anthea didn't know what he did, only that she had indeed met him before – exited his office. No one was scowling so Anthea figured it all went well for both parties for once. As the two were sharing pleasantries, the official and Anthea nodded at each other politely. That's generally how Anthea said goodbye to people in this office, a nod, or completely ignored their existence if they tried to mess with the balance of power a little too much.

"Well, I better let you get back to work." The rather large official said in a very jovial tone. Mycroft nodded with a thin fake smile.

"I'm sure we both want to get out of the office on time." The official laughed and Anthea noted the smile wrinkles around his eyes as he did so. The larger man walked towards the door and Mr. Holmes headed back to his private office as the official looked as if he had an epiphany and turned back round.

"Oh, and Mycroft?" Mycroft turned around and tilted his head. "Happy birthday." _What?_ Anthea frowned and Mycroft smiled shyly. He seemed slightly put off by the mention of it. Not that the official would notice this change in emotions – a few months ago Anthea would have been just as oblivious to it. It was the blink that came quickly after the well wishes that had given him away to her. She was slowly picking up on the little things Mr. Holmes did and what it meant. How to look for cracks in the ice, if you will. She had a long way to go to, but it was something.

"Yes, well, thank you Charles. Have a nice evening." And with that he closed the door to his office. That couldn't be correct. Anthea knew Mycroft's planner like the back of her hand, how could something this important be left off? Of course, he would be the type not to note his own birthday and he did have the evening mysteriously free. How could this be? Anthea's eyes flickered up to the figure of the official already slipping through the open door. Anthea stood up.

"Wait, sir?" She called out. He stuck his head back into the office with a smile. "You said it was Mr. Holmes' birthday?" Charles frowned. For a politician this man had a lot more smile related wrinkles than stressed or worried ones. Perhaps he didn't do his job well or perhaps he liked it too much.

"You don't know?" He then let out a chuckle as full of levity as he seemed to be. "Of course you don't. Mycroft would like very much for people to forget he's human, birthdays and all." Charles looked around and then held a finger to his mouth, talking in a whisper. "I'll let you know a secret. I've seen him bleed before." Anthea gasped.

"You mean he's _not_ a cyborg!?" And Charles laughed.

"Have a nice day, Marissa." He smiled broadly.

"You too, sir." She stayed standing, hands folded behind her back, until she heard the soft click of the door closing. She immediately sat down and unlocked her blackberry, opening the digital planner.

Nope, no sign of his birthday today, or any other day. Not even a mention of whatever he had cleared the evening for. He told Anthea to record almost everything in case she needed to reach him. Mr. Holmes was so clever hiding his birthday – hoping she wouldn't notice until at least a whole year had past and she questioned him on it. It wasn't fair considering he knew everything possible about her from shoe size to preferred cereal brands and she wasn't allowed to know his birthday? No, this wasn't on. Opinions on sentiment and emotions be damned. Anthea's life had improved so much since she'd began working here, she found her self-motivated, and challenged, and she was already planning to move into a much nicer flat, surely this meant she had the right to show some appreciation.

Anthea sat at her desk frowning to herself and in deep thought for a few good moments before she flicked the button of the telecomm.

"Sir, I'm going to take my lunch break early. I have my blackberry if you need me." She waited for the reply.

"_Certainly Anthea, see you soon."_ She grabbed her purse and rushed from the office - she would go to the nearest shopping street.

What do you get for a boss who had everything that power could afford? She could get a joke present for him the way many offices do but he wouldn't appreciate it unless it was _just_ right but she didn't know he personally enough to get that right. A good gift is either something you want or need, but surely Mr. Holmes could get anything he wanted. She'd need to go the more meaningful route based off something he did or something he said. Anthea sighed, she only had half an hour or so to get this gift.

* * *

><p>She returned to the office forty five minutes later pretty pleased with how she went. She'd ended up going to a not so expensive jewellery store and then a newsagency afterward to pick up a gift bag and a card. Anthea placed her handbag down in her chair and knocked on the door next to it on the left. She waited, as usual, for the call to come in and entered with the gift bag behind her back.<p>

Mr. Holmes was sitting at his desk, writing in a manila file when she entered. Anthea stood right in front of the desk and stared down at her boss who didn't even look up.

"How can I help you, Miss James?" He sighed, pen sliding across the page effortlessly. He was correcting documents. A contract she had passed to him earlier this morning.

"You didn't tell me it was your birthday today." She hummed. Anthea watched him carefully for any type of response. She was rewarded with the pen freezing midsentence and the briefest moment of silence.

"No I did not." He placed down the pen, folded his hands together, placing them on the desk and looked up. She pulled the gift from behind the desk and held it in front of her, the gift bag covered in brightly coloured smiley faces being held by a strap balanced on her index finger. Mycroft titled his head and raised an eyebrow at the clearly offensive bag. Anthea sighed and rolled her eyes at him, placing her free hand on her hip.

"It was the only bag they had in the size. Just take the gift." She huffed. He half smiled at her and took the bag carefully as if it pained him to even touch such a garish item. Taking out the card first, he eyed Anthea suspiciously before opening the envelope. The front of the card had a black and white picture of an old fashion woman looking annoyed on the front.

"About being your slave…" Mycroft read the front slowly, his blue eyes once again landing on Anthea, questioning her. "Of all the slave drivers around, you're not too bad. Happy Birthday. From Anthea." He looked up at her with a blank expression, but a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Oh, ha ha." He took the bag that seemed to offend his sense of sight and style, and took out the jewellery store box from inside. His thumb passed over the label of the jewellery store. She wondered what he was deducing from that box because that was obviously what he was doing, he did it with everything and anything without even trying to. He'd know it wasn't expensive but that wasn't the point here.

"I tried not to be a clown," He glanced up at her accusingly. "Besides the card, that is. And I know you're not sentimental. So I tried to get you something you might need. The operative word is _tried_, sir." Mycroft opened the box to reveal two square cufflinks – silver with a small blue sapphire in one of the corners. He looked it over silently and as he did Anthea felt compelled to explain herself. "The first time I met you, you were wearing one of your grey suits with that blue silk tie. I thought these could tie it together nicely." A pause, followed by a shrug from Anthea s she rubbed her arm. "Sorry if they're not as expensive as you like or if you have some like it already. I haven't noticed any anyway."

"Anthea, they're lovely." He looked up with a warm, genuine smile and Anthea's breath caught in her throat. His eyes _did_ sparkle when his smile reached his eyes. She couldn't help but smile widely back. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, sir." Her voice was light. She felt at a loss of what to do now. Anthea looked around the small space for a brief moment before awkwardly shifting towards the door – deciding to leave the office. She heard Mycroft sigh behind her.

"I suppose I'll have to get you a birthday present, now." The bored tone back comfortably in its place.

"You bet." She joked, glancing back into the room with an eyebrow raised mischievously. Mycroft sighed.

"How inconvenient."

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><p><strong><span>Author's Note<span>:**** Well, what do you think? I'd love to hear it :). Also, I found that card online somewhere but I can't remember where. I was googling boss birthday cards, haha.**


	8. The First Time in His House

**Author's Note:**** Wow guys, just wow. The feedback for last chapter was absolutely amazing. I thought it was adorable and I'm so glad you all did too. Thank you guys for reviewing, all the feedback has been spectacular, encouraging, and making me feel like improving myself just to bring you better content. I really hope you guys continue to enjoy this. Please continue to read, review, and enjoy.**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time in his House<strong>

The day was not particularly busy, nor was it particularly long. The reason, Anthea suspected, that she was feeling so warn out was just the culmination of many, many hard working days. This is why she was not so surprised that she had gotten home at 9pm, accidentally fallen asleep, woken up at 11pm, cooked dinner, had a shower, and got into bed at 1 am with an alarm set for 6.30am. It was exhausting but Anthea can't say she missed having a lot of free time – she enjoyed the work.

Anthea got out of the shower – not bothering to dry her hair, put on her scruffy, old, but so comfortable pyjama pants and an old, hole filled top and collapsed on her bed with an exasperated sigh. Scooting onto her side and shuffling to pull the blanket out from under her Anthea tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible. Five and a half hours sleep was still enough to function – under five however may be a detriment considering they had a day full of meetings tomorrow. There would be a lot of traveling in the black town car too, so she'd have to use that time efficiently to answer any emails and messages. Anthea rolled over to lie on her stomach, her face buried in the pillows. She'd have to remember to collect all important files to place into her briefcase.

_Shit_.

Anthea sat up on her knees in her bed. Early in the afternoon when Anthea and Mr. Holmes were rushing to catch the interrogation of a highly dangerous criminal after a meeting with the prime minister another PA had given her a confidential file that was to be looked over before a meeting tomorrow. In her rush Anthea had placed it in her shoulder strap briefcase she had bought herself and ran after Mr. Holmes. The day had barely allowed time to stop and she had forgotten to give him the file after they returned to the office. The meeting was a high priority case and the file was labelled confidential. Anthea snatched her mobile off her desk and quickly tried to dial Mycroft's mobile number.

_Damn it_. He didn't answer and she did not have his home number if he even had one. She frowned and let out a loud sigh feeling anxiety rising. This could not be like the USB incident again, this would embarrass them both and she'd find herself quickly without a job and probably barred from any government related job ever again. She quickly sent a text to Mycroft in hopes that he would at least catch that.

_Urgent sir – I need to give you a file. – A_

Slipping on some flip flops, she ran to the kitchen where her briefcase lay on the counter with the discarded plate of pasta and cheese. She opened it and let a sigh of relief escape her lips, sealing it back up in the case. She grabbed her keys and ran to the elevator, dialling the driver's phone number as she went.

"_Hello?"_ His voice was dreary and dazed. She had woken him up – that much was obvious.

"Hi, Walter, it's Anthea."

"_Anthea!?" _His reply had panic in it and Anthea realised her own tone must be panicked. She took a deep breath to calm down. "_Do you know what time it is? Is anything wrong!?"_

"No, no, don't worry, Walter. There's nothing wrong. I just need Mr. Holmes' address." A pause.

"_Now!?"_ The disbelief was over the top – people who had just woken up tended to be dramatic.

"Yeah, I really need to get something to him and I don't have time to get a driver. Could you text it to me?"

"_Uh sure, no problem."_

"Thanks Walter." Anthea spoke with a sigh. She hung up without waiting for a reply and once the elevator doors open to tenant parking she ran to her car.

She blasted her radio as she drove – hoping this old rock star who was presenting the songs would play ones that she could sing along to in order to keep awake.

She got past Mr. Holmes' security fine – flashing her I.D., which she was so happy to find in her briefcase – and giving a few extra pieces of information regarding her employ. They said they'd call ahead to the house to see if he was awake for her.

When he opened the front door Anthea was blown by the idea of seeing Mycroft Holmes out of a suit. He was wearing a dressing gown the colour of a red velvet cupcake, and pyjama pants, his hair was messy, and there was sleep in his steel blue eyes. Anthea was suddenly aware that she looked no better as the water dripped from her hair onto her now soaking back. The great Mycroft Holmes and his mysterious personal assistant, looking like regular, albeit exhausted, people.

"Anthea?" By the croak of his voice it was clear he had been asleep. She saw him peer over her shoulder in both directions and scope the distance. "Are you alright?" Anthea let out a sigh.

"I'm fine – I'm perfectly alright sir." She held her briefcase up at eye level, shakily. She watched as his focus flickered from the distance onto her newest accessory. "I forgot to give you an important document for tomorrow's first meeting." She saw the tension that she hadn't realised had been there release from his shoulders and his arms shift. She looked down to see there was a gun in his right hand. Really, Anthea shouldn't be surprised, in fact, she was assured. He stepped aside and gestured for her to enter, face blank.

Once inside and standing in the beautiful entrance hall Anthea was painfully aware of how little she knew of Mr. Holmes' private life. She looked around briefly for any signs of life of any hint of breathing or snoring, hoping she would not wake anyone up. Anthea heard the click of the front door and watched as Mr. Holmes placed the gun on the table next to the door, walked past her, expecting her to follow him wherever he was heading.

"No, you are not disturbing anyone, do not worry." Anthea found herself oddly relieved – not only for the fact that she wasn't waking up a household but for another reason she wasn't sure of. "The only people perturbed by this are myself, you, and whoever you got in contact with to get this address." He looked over his shoulder to give Anthea a look over. "If I had to hazard an educated guess I'd say Walter."

"It's almost two in the morning, sir, how can you do that now?" He let out a single chuckle in response. Perhaps he couldn't turn it off. Anthea briefly entertained the idea that maybe it actually got worse when not in full control of the senses – as if it were given free reign. Like how the lights shined brighter when you've been asleep, or everything sounded louder. She wouldn't ask though, not now.

He walked her through the quite bare living room with only the essential – except a beautiful upright piano – into the kitchen. Along the way Anthea tried to keep an eye out for any family photos. Mycroft gestured for her to sit down at the counter in the country style kitchen.

"Can I get you something to drink, my dear?" He asked in a calm tone. She wondered if he was fighting off a yawn or if he was always on point. Anthea scanned the kitchen before flicking her brown orbs over to him and smiling politely.

"Perhaps a water would be nice, sir." He nodded and turned to the cabinets to pull out a glass. "Sir, may I ask why you don't have any photos around?" He walked to the sink and turned on the cold water tap – knowing that his PA preferred room temperature water. He made a hum noise as he considered how to answer.

"Precautionary, mostly." He responded over the sound of the tap. "We can't have people breaking in here and seeing the faces of people who do not need to be dragged into my business. Secondly, I'm not one for sentiment." Anthea rolled her eyes. The tap was switched off and Mycroft placed the glass in front of Anthea, standing on the opposite side of counter. "Most importantly, however, I keep all my memories up here." He placed a slender finger on the side of his head. "Why do I need a photo of a time in my childhood when I can simply go into a room in my mind palace and find every detail as it was?" Anthea smiled in recognition.

"Oh yeah, mind palaces." She yawned and picked up the glass of water. "Hannibal Lecter has one of those in the books." She took a sip. Mycroft playfully frowned and raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know whether to be pleased you've heard of the concept or insulted at being compared to a fictitious cannibal." Anthea laughed into her glass.

"A very smart, fictional cannibal, sir." That false smile of his fell onto his lips as he watched Anthea place the glass on his counter top. He placed both his hands on the table and took a deep breath in.

"Let's see this oh so important file shall we." Anthea nodded, pulling open her briefcase and placing the file to face her boss on the counter. He flicked it open scanned each page, taking time to look over any diagram. Anthea quietly sipped her water as she waited for her boss to finish – it would not take too much time – it was Mycroft Holmes after all. When he had finished he cleared his throat. Anthea raised her eyebrows waiting for a response as his gaze was returned to hers.

"Well thank you, Anthea. That was important for me to see." He half smiled.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, I didn't want another USB incident and I don't have your home number." The smile on his tired features turned to something slightly more natural. He pushed the file to the side of the counter.

"No, no. This was well done of you. I'm not pleased you slipped up but I am glad to see you had the initiative to rectify the situation as soon as you remembered." He walked over to her side of the counter and Anthea watched as he almost place a hand on her shoulder but deciding against the fond expression he gestured to the way of the front door instead. "Now my dear, go home and please get some rest before the day starts." Anthea nodded and found herself yawning at even the mention of sleep.

"Yes sir, you too." She collected her briefcase, phone, and her keys and stood up.

"Oh, but one more thing." He held his palm out flat in front of her. Anthea frowned before recognising the gesture, juggling the items in her hands and placing her phone in his palm. She watched as he went through it before smiling and handing the blackberry back to her. "Mistake rectified."

Anthea looked down to see her phone open to her contacts.

_Mycroft – Home_

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** There you go! Let me know if you enjoyed it, I really appreciate all this feedback :). The next two chapters after this one are kind of going to be a two-parter. It's like how chapter one and two can be read separately but work well together, chapters 9 and 10 are going to be like that.**


	9. The First Sign of Trust

**Author's Note:**** The feedback for last chapter was astounding, guys! Really! I'm super excited that you guys enjoyed that one. It was one of my favourites so far so I'm glad you all like it too. Now you know I take my time to thank all my wonderful reviewers personally but I'll take a moment to thank our guest reviewers too, such as Wink. All your feedback guys is appreciated and the reason I try to keep these chapters at a certain quality. So like I said, chapters 9 and 10 are kind of linked so I really hope you enjoy this one. Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Sign of Trust<strong>

Anthea hadn't woken up until 10am and it was the most blissful feeling she could even comprehend at the moment. She stretched with a content yawn and laid in bed for a further fifteen minutes just happily and sleepily staring at the ceiling. Once she deemed her thought pattern coherent enough to move, she put slippers on her feet and padded into the kitchen, making a cup of tea to lie on the coach with watching trash TV. She was not planning to get out of pyjamas all day.

Anthea had been working for Mycroft Holmes for over six months at this point and even though it was by far the most incredible job she could have ever dreamed of – it was exhausting. She did everything for the man, from picking up his dry cleaning to taking notes during international meetings. Not only were the duties unimaginable but so were the hours – he hadn't been kidding when he said she'd always be on call. Even Sundays which were technically their day off she wouldn't be surprised to be called into action by 7.30am. If Anthea hadn't seen the man dishevelled and in his pyjamas she would have wondered if he ever slept. But today, today was different. To celebrate her lasting longer than his last three P.A.s combined he had allowed her a Saturday off where he promised, _promised_ that regardless of any work problem that came up he would not call her. If it were Jamie Anthea would have asked for a pinkie swear, with Mr. Holmes, Anthea had made him shake on it. He'd given her a dressing down with a powerful look, but had taken her hand regardless.

"I do have other people working for me, Miss James." He had said with that sarcasm of his dripping off his tongue.

"But who else is going to put up with you, sir?"

She sighed contently as she turned on the TV to any mindless drivel that wasn't about the news or politics and let the peaceful noises surround her. There was a Friends marathon on one of the channels and was lasting until midday, which would do fine. She hadn't just _sat_ in her apartment for months and sometimes she missed being bored. Only sometimes though, only now she could appreciate the feeling as rare as it came. No dates, no going out with acquaintances, no weekend stay with Jamie, no Mycroft Holmes complaining about something, just quiet. She might read a book later, yet again, she might not, it didn't matter what she did today. Just as she began to sip her tea her blackberry rang. Her face dropped and she raised an eyebrow. _Of course, _she thought to herself as she picked it up from the coffee table to look at the number.

_Mycroft Holmes – private mobile_

His mobile number. The nerve of the man, he'd promised. Sure, he'd been a proven liar, so was Anthea – or _Alice,_ really – but she'd believed him. Anthea sighed to herself and debated not answering it for a millisecond. Even as she doubted, however, she was already hitting the answer button and raising the phone to her ear.

"Yes, sir?" She asked with a sigh, unable to hide it. Perhaps it were better if he heard he irritation. It would be nice if he could hear the studio audience laughing in the background too, that screamed 'I'm at home'.

"_Anthea, I'm sorry, I know I promised not to call you today. However something," he hesitated "_quite_ important has come up and, well, I am at a loss as to who else to call."_ Anthea frowned to herself, taking her feet off the couch and sitting forward. She knew his mask well enough now to know a crack in it and she wasn't certain but he sounded _tired_. She'd seen him tired before, seen him with the sleep still in his eyes, but she'd never heard him sound like he was exhausted.

"There are plenty of people in the office today sir, is it about the meeting?"

"_Yes and no."_ He answered_. "It's a bit more of a personal matter and I'd rather not involve work."_ Now this got Anthea really concerned. Mycroft Holmes didn't have personal matters. She was already off her feet and carrying her mug to the kitchen sink.

"A personal matter, sir?" The cup clinked as it was placed upside down in the sink, the still warm coffee spilling down the drain.

"_Yes, look –"_ A sighed on the other end of the phone as he restarted. _"I'm going to be frank with you, my brother is in hospital."_ He has a brother_? "I'd like to stay with him until he woke up or another visitor arrives but as you said, it's the Chinese representatives last day in England and we can't afford to reschedule."_ Anthea was already at her closet pulling down the easiest clothes to slip into. A pair of jeans and a band tee. She knew they couldn't reschedule, they had already done so twice and Mycroft was eager to get this deal over and done with. If it were put off and they went home, well, there could be a lot of trouble – some Anthea couldn't even comprehend.

"St. Barts, sir?"

"_Yes."_

"I'll be right there."

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><p>It wasn't until she reached the hospital that she realised she hadn't asked what Mycroft's brother's name was. It was odd really, turning up at a hospital to visit a patient that you didn't even know the name of. Anthea was getting way too used to being prepared for anything – a missing detail was strange.<p>

"Hi, I'm looking for a… Mr. Holmes?" She asked with a frown that the nurse matched. "His brother, Mycroft Holmes called me." The elaboration seemed to help as the nurse typed it into the computer and gave her the room number.

If Anthea wasn't exceptionally well trained at this point with guarding herself she might have gasped at the sight of Mycroft Holmes sitting in a hospital chair looking absolutely exhausted, leaning over, looking over his brother's face. She cursed herself now for not stopping to get coffee. He would have liked one right now – a black one for once too. She wondered for how long he had been sitting there. Long before Anthea had even dreamed of getting out of bed, that's for sure. Perhaps even before she settled down for the night. For once he hadn't seemed to notice her enter.

"Sir?" She asked gently and quietly. He looked over to her and within a second his mask was on covering all but the tiredness that the dark circles under his eyes betrayed him of. He smiled, it most definitely did not reach his eyes this time. No sparkle, no feint amusement, not even close.

"Anthea, thank you for making it at such short notice." He looked back to his brother – not moving from his position on the chair. Anthea noticed how his hands were clasped together.

"It's in the job description, sir." She tried to joke with a small smile. He didn't even look her way.

"No, it's not." He responded – no emotion to betray him. "And I apologize profusely once again for interrupting your lack of plans." Anyone else she may have been tempted to hug him, maybe offer words of sympathy, instead she was at a loss. She stepped closer to the hospital bed and examined his brother. The mop of curls that stuck to the brother's head made him look weaker and younger than he probably was. He was tall, like his brother, and very thin.

"Overdose?" She asked, knowing he'd at least appreciate her open honesty. Mycroft took a deep breath in and leaned back in his chair. She noticed the umbrella hooked on the arm rest. That was some normalcy then.

"Not Sherlock's first, either." She had a feeling he said the name for her benefit. She filed it away safely. "He doesn't know what to do when he's not using his brain. He tries to shut it off with morphine or cocaine." So the brother was super intelligent too then, no surprise. That was some family resemblance.

"You just make sure you don't have any down time." He looked up at her accusingly for a moment before it melted into that fake smile, nowhere near as warm as it could be, as warm as she'd seen it when she'd made a sarcastic joke that he'd deemed smile worthy but not laugh worthy. Mr. Holmes turned back to his brother and sat watching him for a few more minutes in silence. Anthea couldn't help feeling like she had intruded – like she'd stumbled onto a part of Mycroft Holmes' life that wasn't supposed to exist. _He_ wasn't supposed to exist outside the office to anyone. And yet, here she was, watching him as he watched his little brother. It was… different.

"Do you need me to call anyone, sir?" She fumbled over her question, raising him out of his own thoughts as he looked at his mobile for the time. "Parents?"

"No," He said as he stood up, grabbing his precious umbrella with a swift and unnoticed movement. "No need to worry Mummy about this, only if it turns out to be a complete relapse." _Mummy._ Once again she felt like she heard something that people were not supposed to know. Why was she being privy to Sherlock, addictions and the fact that they called their mother 'Mummy'? Until today she barely even thought of him outside the office. His house had been practically empty. "If Sherlock's only being idiotic on a one-off because he's bored then I can deal with it myself." He rolled his eyes and she smiled warmly. He tapped the tip of the umbrella on the floor twice, then gave her instructions in a tone she was much more accustomed to hearing. "I only need you to stay here until either a Detective Lestrade, a colleague of my brother's, comes in, or until visiting hours are over. Lestrade will know you under the guise of Caroline."

"Will do, sir." She nodded. He opened his mouth to say something but hesitated, searching her eyes.

"Thank you, Anthea."

"Not a problem, sir."

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><p>When Anthea turned up to work on Monday morning she was greeted by a bouquet of flowers made up mostly of Queen Anne's lace and yellow roses. The little card within the flowers had only the words 'thank you' in that delicate hand writing she was growing to know so well. She smiled to herself, holding the card absently to her lips as she mused. <em>How many people had gotten flowers from Mycroft Holmes<em>? Very few she'd imagine. She placed the card down and went to make tea in the kitchenette.

She brought the tea into the office with a smile as she placed it on his desk.

"Good morning Anthea, I trust all is well?" He asked without looking up from his current file.

"Yes sir," She said walking back to the door before turning and facing him. "I hope all is well with you, too?" He looked up from his file to look her in the eyes, brown and blue locking.

"Yes, fine, thank you." She smiled more warmly. Anthea stood in front of his desk and cleared her throat, getting down to business. He folded his hands on the desk and looked up at her, a cue for her to debrief the weekends more important notes.

"James called last night, sir. He's back from his mission early and wants to come in and brief you in person. I told him you are working from the Diogenes Club from lunch onwards so to come before then. Charles sent an email regarding the Americans, I told him everything was under control. Lestrade sends his regards and says that he's going to threaten the younger Holmes with a search of his flat if this continues. Finally, I have read your notes from the meeting with the Chinese and will put them into a contract this morning." After she finished rattling off the notes Mr. Holmes nodded, opening a draw, and pulling out a file.

"Excellent, thank you Anthea. When your namesake drops by please send him straight in and take this," he held out the file for Anthea to take. As soon as her hand was on it he continued. "Straight to Mr. Warrick. I need him to sign that today." Anthea tucked the file under her arm and nodded once.

"Understood, sir." Mr. Holmes' attention flickered straight off Anthea onto the computer screen as he reached for his cup of tea.

"Yes, thank you, my dear." Anthea smiled warmly, regardless of whether Mycroft could see it or not.

"Any time." With a swift turn on her heals Anthea left the private inner office to her desk in the office proper.

Business as usual.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** Well, what did you think? Thanks for reading and please let me know what you thought. Two guesses who's in next chapter :P. Not really, obviously you know who, I don't think sarcasm is displayed well in text... But year, thanks and review :).**


	10. The First Time She Spoke To Sherlock

**Author's Note:**** Taking this opportunity to thank all my lovely reviews, favourite-ers and followers once again. The reviews are just so exciting for me. I hope you're just as generous with this chapter and tell me what you think of the general dynamic. Anyway, read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time She Spoke to Sherlock<strong>

The town car had come to a stop in front of a small, dank, house that had been turned into smaller, dinkier apartments. Anthea looked up from her blackberry and took in the look of the disgustingly dark green painted building, the green blistering and splitting to reveal and equally repelling orange underneath. Her eyes flickered over to Mycroft as he opened the car door.

"What are we doing here, sir?" She asked, her hands were still frozen in the middle of answering an email on the instalment of new CCTV cameras. He inhaled deeply, keeping his features very calm.

"I'm here on personal business, Miss James." He used on of those fake half smiles as he too observed the building through Anthea's side of the car's window. "You may follow if you like." That was an invitation from Mr. Holmes if Anthea had ever heard one. She was falling deeper and deeper into being the keeper of Mycroft Holmes' work life, might as well give herself some more insight on the man. She pocketed her blackberry and got out of the town car to follow her boss up the cement staircase up to the main door, her high heels clicking lightly as she walked. He kept his leather gloves on as he opened the door, gesturing for Anthea to enter first, and quite frankly she couldn't blame him as she smiled and entered. The inside was just as bad as the outside. Watermarks on carpet, stains on the wallpaper. At the very least it didn't smell too bad, just musky. Perhaps wet dog? Without speaking Mycroft began towards the staircase that was curiously covered in different carpet to the rest of the family room turned entrance way. Once the duo reached a specific door on the second floor Mycroft and Anthea stood before it, facing each other, neither speaking yet. Mycroft concentrated, listening for noise or any sign of life on the other side of the door. What type of personal matter was this? This was more covert than most work Anthea did for Mycroft, and so far felt far more like a mission of sorts that someone like James would go on. With the wooden handle of his umbrella Mycroft tapped twice firmly on the door painted in that ghastly green colour. There was only the briefest pause before the reply came.

"Go away, Mycroft!" The melodic tenor voice came from behind the door. Mycroft raised both his eyebrows and smiled at Anthea, blue eyes sparkling with some form of defiance she had never seen on Mycroft before. It was a boyish defiance that Anthea had seen many times – during her school years and when one of her boyfriends were being playfully naughty – but such a childish twinkle in Mycroft's eyes was not something Anthea had ever thought she'd see and et she hoped she'd get to see it again. The voice telling him to go away, this seemed to be what he expected. Mycroft opened the door and the pair entered. Anthea had only just made it through the doorframe when something had been catapulted in the direction of Mycroft's head. He sidestepped and easily avoided it. Looking down on the floor where the item had landed Anthea could see that it was a crumpled up piece of paper. Mycroft too looked at it and clicked his tongue.

"Really now, Sherlock. Is that how you greet all your houseguests?" He chided, that typical sarcasm oozing. Wait, _Sherlock_? Anthea's brown eyes shot up to review the room. Sure enough, sitting practically perched on the couch with a laptop on his lap was the man who had been in the hospital. Mycroft's baby brother, Sherlock Holmes, in all his glory. The brown curls, sharp features that made him look so different from his brother, Anthea recognised. The absolutely kinetic energy about him now he was awake she did not recognise, nor the blue eyes. Now she could see those vibrant blue orbs that had endless depths of intelligence as the pierced the scull of his brother, Anthea could see the family resemblance.

"Only when they're not invited." Sherlock scowled. The briefest moment of silence pasted as the brothers stared each other down, before Sherlock huffed and put his attention back onto his laptop. "Since you wouldn't have left the comfort of your office unless you felt utterly compelled to, what do you want?" Anthea could _feel_ the smirk radiating off Mycroft as he twisted his umbrella into the dirty carpet.

"I came to talk to you about your… interest in illicit chemicals." Sherlock sniffed in response.

"Really? You want to discuss this in front of _her_?" Sherlock didn't even look or gesture to Anthea as he mentioned her. Anthea merely glanced over to Mycroft, whose attention didn't even flicker her way. "What about your precious secrecy?" Mycroft kept his steel gaze on his brother, shifting the umbrella once more, and still fake smiling.

"She's quite trustworthy, Sherlock, I assure you." Mycroft spoke to his brother as if speaking like a child. Watching these two talk to each other now, their relationship was nowhere near as close as what had been portrayed in that hospital room.

"Clearly." Sherlock scoffed. His eyes flashed up to meet Anthea's and quickly landed on the laptop but as soon as they hit the screen they were right back up at Anthea's a frown on his brow. Anthea quirked an eyebrow suspiciously in response. "You've met me before." He mused, searching her face for the answer. He looked back at his brother. "So you were at the hospital." It sounded accusing. Humming to herself Anthea got out her blackberry to pretend she wasn't listening to this private conversation.

"Of course I bloody was. I wasn't trying to cover it up Sherlock, try to pay attention more often." A moment of silence as Anthea stood next to her boss, perhaps as silent back up? An extra support that the umbrella couldn't supply? "This all alludes to my original intention. I thought we were passed all of this _addict_ business." Mycroft's concern was rewarded with yet another scoff and if Anthea looked up she would bet good money that Sherlock was sneering again.

"I'm not addicted to it, Mycroft. I was merely passing time between cases and experiments." She saw Mycroft shift in the corner of her eye to turn away briefly from Sherlock but then step towards him. His grip on the wooden handle of the umbrella was tighter.

"Oh for goodness sake, Sherlock. Bored? Do me a favour and get a better hobby for your pastime. Anything really, get a pet, learn a few new language, _tend to bees_, just, don't be such an idiot."

"I'm sorry that not all of us can standing sitting in a cushioned seat all day, Mycroft." It seemed that Sherlock could hiss with the same venom Mycroft could, another family trait then. "Please don't let me keep you from your desk, you're looking positively out of breath just standing there." Anthea eyed the brothers discretely from just above her blackberry screen, both standing as a living example of Newton's laws. If Sherlock was an action, Mycroft was the equal reaction. And if Sherlock were a mass Mycroft was trying to shift, a large mass of willpower at that, then Mycroft needed more force to shift him. Mycroft sighed.

"Be serious, brother mine. If you're bored I could get you cases involving codes that not even the best cryptologists can decipher." Brother mine? How odd. A childhood nickname perhaps? Anthea might categorize it as cute if it were anyone else. In this case, however, she kept the smile off her red painted lips.

"I don't need your cast offs, brother." Sherlock sniffed. A moment of silence pasted as Sherlock stared at his computer screen and Mycroft eyed his brother carefully. Mycroft looked around the apartment – not subtlety, making quite the show of it, an eyebrow raised.

"Oh yes, I can see this consulting detective business of yours is quite successful." A sneer from the younger brother a step forward from the older one as his voice found more sarcasm. "Tell me, when am I going to see my investment into your business return? With interest due to this remarkable success." And there it was, the extra force Mycroft needed to shift his brother. Of course Sherlock owed Mycroft money, look at the state of each of their lives. Anthea didn't even think for a second that Mycroft expected this money back, this was all leverage. It showed care that he was emoting – regardless of how fake this emotion was. Sherlock closed his laptop, his eyes narrowing on the taller man. Anthea was invisible in this game of power.

"Really, Mycroft? Will it take giving you something of value to make you leave? What would you have me give you? Half my liver just in case yours fails?" Mycroft smiled one of those dangerous pride fuelled smiles.

"Do some casework for me, brother mine, and a debt can easily be forgotten." A moment passed as sky blue eyes drilled into steel blue ones before Sherlock snapped back open his laptop. He sniffed.

"Fine. I'll do your legwork for you, Mycroft." He mumbled in that deep register. "Have one of your monkeys drop something by. She'll do." He did not even look up as he addressed Anthea. Anthea looked at Mr. Holmes and raised an eyebrow, he rolled his eyes in response.

"I'll tell Mummy that you're still alive then." Mycroft sighed, sounding quite done with the whole situation.

"Please do." A monotone voice responded. Anthea looked up at Mr. Holmes who rolled his eyes at her and began walking towards the door. Anthea pocketed her phone and moved to follow when a voice called out for her. "You. Wait." Pausing in the doorframe Anthea let a quizzical look cross her features, silently asking her boos a question. Mycroft gave a put on shrug and nodded towards the door. _Go ahead_.

"I'll be at the entrance, my dear."

"Yes, sir." She watched as Mycroft walked down the stairs and out of view before turning back into the apartment, leaning on the doorframe and looking at Sherlock. Sherlock closed the laptop, leaped out of the chair and came to stand in front of her, looking her up and down. If she wasn't so used to Mycroft deducing her and other people she might be intimidated. She might also be intimidated by his height if she were not already used to the ever so slightly taller big brother. What he wanted though, Anthea wasn't sure. She kept on her own half bored, half annoyed face that she had learnt from watching the elder Holmes. "Can I help you?" She asked lazily.

"You work for my brother…" He muttered. Anthea sniffed.

"Clearly." Sherlock took a step closer, locking eyes with Anthea, sky blue on brown.

"What's your name?" He asked slowly, daringly. Keeping hold of his eyes she answered straight and calm.

"Anthea." She said. His eyes narrowed.

"No it's not." He answered and Anthea rewarded him with a sly smile.

"No, it's not." She echoed in agreement, tilting her head. She held herself together calmly, giving off that lazy curiosity as Sherlock considered her for a moment longer. She watched as his lips pursed ever so slightly.

"What is your name, then?" Anthea folded her arms across her chest.

"None of your business. Anthea is enough."

"Fine." He muttered, walking back over to the couch. Anthea titled her head and frowned.

"Excuse me?" She half laughed. Sherlock perched himself back on the couch and seemed to frown in confusion at Anthea's continued presence.

"I said fine. Ok. You can go." What was he even going on about? Sherlock was certainly lacking the social skills Mycroft had.

"That's all you wanted?" Sherlock opened his laptop and sighed to himself.

"I learnt everything I needed to. Please shut the door on your way out." Anthea looked around the apartment, as if searching for a catch before exiting, shutting the door as requested. If Anthea didn't know better she would have sworn that Sherlock was approving her as Mycroft's PA, but given the display from the two brothers she wouldn't think he'd care. Then again, there was Mycroft's positively stricken by worry at the hospital… When she reached the entrance way, Mycroft was looking at his own phone.

"And what, pray tell, did he want?" He asked. Anthea smiled.

"To know my name, apparently." She half laughed as she spoke. Mycroft looked up from his screen.

"And what did you tell him?"

"Anthea, naturally." Mycroft locked his phone and put it in his pocket.

"Naturally." He answered with that half smile and opened the door, holding it open for Anthea. He followed behind her, shutting the door tightly. "I'll have some files for you to drop off here by tomorrow afternoon." Anthea nodded, taking out her blackberry in order to add the change to the planner.

"Certainly sir, and when will you come to pick them up?" The only indication of surprise on Mycroft's part was a quick observing glance thrown Anthea's way. He started his way down the cement stairs.

"Friday around noon would allow him sufficient time." Anthea smiled to herself as she added Friday lunchtime into their planner.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** Sherlock's not going to be a regular appearance per chapter but he's obviously going to make appearances from time to time – as to be expected. I hope you all enjoyed it and let me know what you think!**


	11. Her Birthday

**Author's Note:**** Thank you for all for the wonderful feedback regarding last chapter. Introducing Sherlock was a big deal, and though he won't be around a lot, it's great to know you enjoy the banter between the brothers! You guys continue to humble me and inspire me. I really hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the others. Read, review, and most of all, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>Her Birthday<strong>

Anthea hated birthdays. Well, that's not entirely true. She wasn't opposed to celebrating other peoples birthdays, she loved getting Jamie a gift and got a secret kind of pleasure the first time she saw Mycroft wearing those silver cufflinks, but she hated her own birthday. Ever since her parents died, despite the efforts of those around her, she hated her birthday. She supposed most people who were orphaned at some point in their lives felt the same way. Now, living in London, away from anyone she grew up with, birthdays were nothing but boring and lonely. Anthea usually just had a few drinks and watched bad movie versions of book adaptations alone in her flat. If Jamie were visiting they'd generally do the same thing but have a much better time. Also, when she wasn't visiting, a phone call from Jamie to see if she had received the present that had been sent, but that was it. Luckily this year there would be no time to wallow in loneliness.

Anthea zipped her suitcase up with a sigh. After a busy day of tying up loose ends she and Mr. Holmes would be flying to Paris for a few days of work and then going to Arlington and the FBI base before heading home. That reminded Anthea of something she needed to pack. Anthea quickly headed to her bookcase and found her French to English dictionary from her high school classes and threw it into her handbag. Her French was rusty. She'd informed Mr. Holmes quite recently, when requiring about languages, that her French had at one point been almost fluent and she would have no need to study it. She didn't get a compliment, of course, instead he informed her that since she had a romantic language to rely on, she should pick up a Germanic one or an Asian one. As if it were that easy. Still, she did find herself looking at the "For Dummy's" books later that week for the different languages. She'd walked out of the bookstore without choosing one.

One final thing to do before she headed to work. Anthea opened the small jewellery box with the fake pearl stud earrings Jamie had sent her for her birthday to put on. Once Anthea had them placed in her lobes she took a photo and sent it to Jamie.

_Wearing your earrings to work today like you wanted. They'll be going with me to Paris – A._

The reply was almost instant.

_Yay! They look so good on you Miss Professional Lady. Happy Birthday Ali, call me – Jamie xx._

_Thanks, I will later when I get the chance – A._

A faint trace of a smile crossed Anthea's lips as she locked her blackberry, also placing in her handbag as the handbag was slipped onto her arm. She grabbed the small suitcase and headed out the door.

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><p>Anthea placed her suitcase next to Mycroft's next to the door of the office. They looked straight out of a matching pair, those two black, nondescript and relatively small suitcases. She placed her handbag and briefcase down at her desk and noticed two envelopes on top of her keyboard. Mycroft must have received them on his way in and placed them on her desk. That meant they were from people around work. As long as they weren't from the secretaries trying to suck up to her, that would be fine. With a hefty sigh she picked one up and slid her finger through the seal of the envelope. A generic birthday card with a picture of a cartoon smiling bee on the front with a dotted line indicating its flight pattern. Anthea pursed her lips and flipped it open.<p>

_A or whoever you are today,_

"_Happy Birthday Honey"_

_Have a great day!_

_James_

Anthea rolled her eyes again but placed the card on her desk. That agent, really. He had a way to make people smile, which is why Anthea often considered challenging his career choice. She picked up the other envelope opening it in the same fashion. This one had an image of cubicles and said on the front "_Happy Birthday to someone who always brings a smile to everyone at the office"_. She flicked it open.

"_Heck, you're right up there with donuts and payday."_

_Miss James,_

_I think coffee and tea is up there too but since you usually deliver it I guess you're higher. Have a lovely day._

_Walter._

Anthea almost laughed at that card as she genuinely felt her mood lighten slightly as she placed Walter's card next to James'. She tilted her head as she observed the cards for a moment. Funny how the job really felt like it was just her and Mycroft all the time in some type of seclusions and yet here were two birthday cards that demonstrated she saw other people enough for them to want to give her a card. Sighing once more she went into the kitchenette to make Mr. Holmes a cup of tea. She brought it into his private office and as per usual placed it on the clean corner of his desk without so much of a glance up from his file. This was common place now, it did not mean he didn't know she was there.

"Good morning, Anthea." He hummed.

"Good morning, sir." She replied flatly, keeping herself from sighing again.

"I trust that you're prepared for this evening?" he asked with his own sigh, referring to the plane flight to Paris. Anthea let out a single laugh that almost came across as a scoff.

"I might even be over prepared, sir." A controlled smile was placed on his lips as he looked up to hand Anthea a sliver USB drive.

"No such thing, my dear." He hummed. She gave him her own controlled smile and took the USB and left the office to do her own work at her desk before she takes this particular USB to its destination. No instructions were needed, she knew where these USB drives went to.

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><p>Anthea returned from dropping the USB off to see Mycroft placing a manilla folder on her desk. He glanced at her and she gave him a small controlled smile as she nodded once. She took of her coat and placed it on top of her suitcase, tucking a loose lock of curled brown hair behind her ear. Turning back to her desk she saw Mycroft staring at her with a slightly cocked head. Anthea raised an eyebrow at him, walking over to her desk, past him, and sitting down.<p>

"Those are rather cheap earrings by your standards." He stated in that matter of fact tone of his. Anthea could have been offended, but this was Mycroft. Anthea briefly glanced back up to Mr. Holmes before returning her attention to her computer, plugging in her password, and shrugging.

"They're a birthday gift from Jamie." She shook her head and looked up at Mycroft. "I promised her I'd wear them." He pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. She could practically feel him holding back from rolling his eyes. She wondered how many sarcastic comments were going through his head at the moment and was slightly intrigued to see how he would eventually answer.

"I understand that familial bonds require unnecessary sacrifices and compromises, but to go so far as to compromise your appearance?" He sighed, walking back to his desk. "You're a good friend, my dear." Anthea rolled her eyes and turned back to her computer. Condescension then, fairly obvious when it came to something to do with sentimentality.

"I know it wasn't a compliment but I'm taking it as one." She raised her voice and called after him. As she opened her emails she heard the click of his door.

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><p>Anthea had just shut off her desktop computer and was in the process of turning it off from the power point when Mycroft emerged from his office, pulling on his shirt sleeves to neaten up his black pinstriped suit. Anthea flashed him a smile as she picked up her briefcase and placed the pile of files on her desk within it. She looked over at the two birthday cards, considering putting them either in the bin or locked away in the desk draw, she quickly dismissed both idea with a light shake of her head, deciding to leave them in their place on her desk.<p>

"All set?" Mycroft asked. His steel eyes were as bright now at 9pm as they had been at 7.30 am.

"Ready when you are, sir." Her automatic response came. She quickly checked her handbag for her personal items and once pleased Anthea zipped up her bag and smiled.

When they reached the blackened town car Walter was standing next to the opened boot with his hands folded in front of him.

"Good evening, sir." His gentle voice came with a large nod of his head.

"Good evening, Walter." Mycroft responded politely. Walter took his suitcase off him and lifted into the car. He then turned to Anthea, green eyes twinkling.

"And happy birthday, Miss James." He beamed. Feeling slightly embarrassed Anthea felt herself shrink and gave Walter a small smile.

"Thanks, Walter. Thanks for the card." He chuckled as he hoisted Anthea's suitcase into the boot.

"Did you think it was funny?" He asked, his voice full of joy as he slammed down the boot. Mycroft got out his phone and started typing as he made his way to the passenger door. Anthea nodded at Walter.

"I almost laughed out loud." She spoke as the soft click of the passenger door was heard. With a grin, Walter patted Anthea gently on the shoulder. It might has well been a hug. Hugs don't exist in this world, and none of these people were huggers anyway. Anthea was pleased about that, she hated all those fake birthday hugs that were forced upon her at her old job.

"I'm glad you liked it." His words were warm as he walked over to the opposite door Mr. Holmes had entered and opened it for Anthea. She slid into her usual seat and Walter closed the door with a soft click. Anthea buckled her seatbelt and glanced over at Mycroft, who was still on his phone. She too got out her blackberry and began looking over the itinerary and making sure the plane was waiting for them.

"Have you been brushing up on your French, my dear?" Mycroft spoke over his phone. Neither made eye contact with each other and yet Anthea found herself nodding anyway.

"Yes, sir." She answered automatically. She allowed her lips to pull upwards into something resembling a smile. Bringing her handbag onto her lap, Anthea unzipped it, and held the dictionary out by one corner. She dangled it in the air. "I've even brought an old text book, just in case." He quirked an eyebrow and glanced from the book to Anthea from just above his phone screen.

"Good."

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><p>It was just the two of them on that private jet. The two of them, the great Mycroft Holmes and his mysterious PA, sat across from each other, both reading files they had packed. Occasionally they passed them to each other and discussed certain elements or swapped files, but other than that they sat in silence and worked as if they were indeed in their office, separated by that wooden wall. Halfway through the relatively short flight Mycroft closed his folder, crossed his legs, and looked at the time on his watch. Anthea eyed him carefully over her file, waiting for a question or a request.<p>

"The day is almost over." He spoke quietly and one might mistake him for speaking to himself as he eyed his watch, but Anthe knew him better than to speak unless necessary. Anthea flipped a page in her file. He leant over to his briefcase and pulled out a very small parcel, wrapped in dark blue paper. "I suppose I should give you this before it's past the point." He leaned over and held it out in one hand for Anthea to take. She eyed it very carefully for a moment before giving Mycroft a quick look. She closed her file and took to parcel.

"You know when I said you owed me a present in return that I was joking, sir? I didn't actually expect anything." She tilted her head slightly and half smiled. Mycroft clicked his tongue, his mouth pulling into his own small smile.

"Oh, I know," He hummed. "But you placed me in an awkward position in which a gift must be reciprocated." Anthea chuckled lightly as she flipped the gift over in her hands, trying to deduce something the way he might but failing. "Don't worry about monetary value, my dear, it's merely a trinket that has been gathering dust in my house for many years now and would more likely be appreciated in your care." Anthea's smile grew thinner as she pursed her lips, apprehensively sliding her finger under the tape holding the paper together. Opening the paper revealed a small white and blue book with gold-leaf paper and a red ribbon bookmark. She flipped it over to see the front cover. The cover depicted a woman sitting in a theatre box, holding up opera glasses.

_Le Fantome De L'opera – Gaston Leroux _

"The Phantom of the Opera?" She inhaled as her hand stroked the front cover gently. "I didn't even know it was a book." Anthea was just enthralled with the cover. She heard a soft chuckle coming from her boss.

"Yes, well it is, and while it may not be to my tastes it is vastly superior to that ghastly musical." Anthea looked up as she laughed, her eyes twinkling, her smile broad. Her chocolate gaze fell back down to the novel as she carefully opened the book, relishing in the smell of the old novel. She read the first sentence on the page.

"It's in French!" She exclaimed, looking back up to the amused blue eyes of her boss. Mycroft raised an eyebrow and smiled just a slither broader.

"What a perfect way to test your French skills." Anthea laughed again. She closed the book, laying her hand gently on the cover of her latest asset.

"Sir, this is amazing." She breathed. Mycroft shifted in his seat, uncrossing his legs to recross them with the left on top rather than the right.

"I was clearly correct in deducing that it would be appreciated in your possession." Anthea heard Mycroft speak but didn't truly comprehend it as she flicked the book to the first page prepared to read. She was at a loss of what to say.

"Just, thank you, sir."

"It was nothing, dear, really." Not truly listening to Mycroft, Anthea hummed in amusement, and translated a sentence in the book into English, stuttering and pausing here and there to concentrate on particularly hard words.

"…_at first sight, might be looked upon as superhuman; and more than once I was within an ace of abandoning a task in which I was exhausting myself in the hopeless pursuit of a vain image. At last, I received the proof that my presentiments had not deceived me; and I was rewarded for all my efforts on the day when I acquired the certainty that the Opera ghost was more than a mere shade._" She hummed again and looked up at Mycroft with sparkling eyes. "Oh I like that." She beamed and Mycroft merely tilted his head in amusement. "I think I'll bookmark that." She moved the red ribbon bookmark and gently placed it in the margin between the second and third page of the book.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** I didn't go searching for random quotes, I've owned that book (in English) since I was about 15. Unlike Mycroft, I do love the musical. But that's beside the point. What do you think? I love your feedback guys, keep it coming! Thanks for reading.**

**Second Disclaimer: ****Phantom of the Opera - 1911, Gaston Leroux. It's a very unique read. Don't go into it expecting the musical, if you know further lore, you'll love it.**


	12. The First Time She Took The Lead

**Author's Note:**** Hey guys! First things first, thank you for your lovely feedback for last chapter. I'm glad you all seemed to appreciate the gift choice – as both unique and lovely. Secondly, thanks so much for all the new followers. Please, followers, do not be afraid to leave reviews. They are, after all, my lifeblood :P. This is a nice, long (by my standards) chapter for you so please read, review, and most importantly; enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time She Took The Lead<strong>

Anthea knocked three times rhythmically on that ghastly green coloured door before, after twisting the doorknob to confirm it was unlocked, opened the front door to the flat and stood in the doorway. Sherlock Holmes was sitting on the couch in his striped dressing gown staring intensely into his laptop screen, newspapers open and spread across the rickety coffee table. Anthea leaned against the doorframe and smiled mockingly as she absorbed the scene. The chaos of the flat was very indicative of its owner and was a fantastic contrast to Mycroft's flawless office. Sherlock's shockingly bright blue eyes flickered from the screen momentarily to confirm the visitor was who he thought it was. Of course it was, Anthea always used the same knock – it was her own way of giving away her identity without having to wait for the door to be answered. Sherlock's focus was back on the laptop for another ten seconds before he chose to speak.

"What is it this time?" The low timbre of his voice growled as he spoke. "Are you here to scout and report on my wellbeing, or does brother dear want something done for him?" Both really, isn't that the point of getting Sherlock to do things? To make sure he was ok? Anthea let her facial features relax slightly from the mocking smile into something gentler. She opened her mouth before she got a whiff of some odour. Closing her mouth she took in a deep breath from her nose. It was rancid. Rancid might not even be the right word, putrid maybe, as if it filled up all your senses with a thick rotting like smell.

"What's that smell?" She asked, chocolate eyes scanning her view of the dingy flat from her position in the doorway. Sherlock didn't shift in the slightest as he answered.

"I'm testing the ability of different acids to dissolve flesh under increased temperature to find the ideal degrees to optimize the speed of reaction." It was spoken as a fact, as if this high school chemistry test taken to the extreme should be obvious answer to what he was doing. If Anthea didn't have firsthand experience of the absurdity of a Holmes brother she may have been appalled. Or more amused than she was now, either way. She titled her head as she observed the younger Holmes.

"Got a criminal who gets rid of his bodies on the run?" She asked, not keeping the slight bemusement from her voice. Sherlock hummed a disagreement.

"Just curious." And this time Anthea actually barked a laugh. Nothing should ever surprise her anymore and yet something always did. Opening her briefcase, Anthea pulled out a manila file. She swung it in her hand, tempting Sherlock. His eyes landed on it and stared for a moment before meeting her eyes, eyebrow quirked faintly.

"Got a case for you." She spoke in a sing-song voice. Sherlock licked his lips in thought and then held his hand out. Knowing what this meant due to his brother, Anthea stepped into the flat, walking towards Sherlock and handing him the slim file. "Just an internet thing," She shrugged. "It should only take you a few hours." Sherlock, with his laptop still open on his lap, open the file and began skim reading it. "At most."

"Details?" He asked regardless of what he was reading. Anthea shrugged again, pushing her hair behind her ears.

"Someone has details on an important political figure. It's blackmail; that much is obvious. He keeps getting email threats followed by these codes. We suspect they'll lead to incriminating photos, documents, or videos. The minister won't tell us what this might be."

"'_We'_, meaning you and my brother?" He asked. Anthea nodded in an indifferent manner. "I'm assuming Mycroft was asked to look into it." Again Anthea nodded as she looked around the flat. It was just as messy and filthy as it had been the last few times she had been here. That skull that moved around was currently sitting on the top of an old television.

"He did. Mr. Holmes informed him that he is quite busy and doesn't have the time to deal with trivial matters but he'd get one of his best men on it just this once." Anthea was interrupted by a scoff and an eye roll from the younger Holmes. She allowed herself to roll her own eyes at this. "I suspect an affair – he's married. Your brother agrees but he thinks it's a tad more complicated than that." Sherlock hummed in agreement to this statement as he flicked over the page to look at the list of emails.

"Find out who did it?" Sherlock asked. Anthea let a smirk cross her face.

"Find out who did it, and what they have. We'll deal with the rest." Sherlock's glance reached Anthea's face as she allowed her smirk to turn into something a little more sinister – playing the role of the mysterious PA perfectly that if she were not dealing with a Holmes might scare anyone else.

"Fine. I-" Sherlock's response was cut off by Anthea's blackberry ringing. She held up a finger to silence him and gave him an apologetic look as she dug out her phone. It was from Downing Street.

"I have to get this." She mused as she stared at the screen. She pressed answer. "This is the personal assistant of Mycroft Holmes, how can I help you?" She answered with her practiced response to political figures.

"_Miss James," _it was the voice of the Prime Minister's first assistant. "_There is a problem. The deal with Cuba is collapsing. Your office phone seems to have diverted to your mobile_." Anthea bit her lip, staring at the brown coloured carpet, scuffing it with her black stiletto heel.

"Mr. Holmes is currently at the Diogenes Club." A sniff of contempt came from Sherlock. Anthea eyed him carefully as she continued to talk down the phone. "They're not fond of noise there so I'm collecting all calls. Is it urgent? I can get him anything you need completed." Mr. Holmes was currently working on a case he'd agreed to do for the FBI, with pleasing financial imbursement of course, which meant working from the club rather than his government office. This deal had been the reason for their visit to Arlington after Paris.

"_It's quite important Miss James. We're on the verge of a collapse here. It needs to be dealt with immediately. The Minister for Defence is already here."_ Anthea frowned deeply, feeling a panic start to grip around her heart. She quelled those feelings and took a deep breath, allowing herself a moment to collect her thoughts. What would Mycroft tell her to do? What has he asked her to get for him in these situations and what was his first point of action?

"Ok, here's what's going to happen." She spoke with authority and fake confidence she had recently discovered she was good at. She could see Sherlock watching her from above the manila file. "You are going to send me a list of what needs to be addressed right this second to prevent an immediate collapse. I won't be able to establish a solution but I'll delay it and help out any way I can to allow enough time for me to reach Mr. Holmes at the club and get him to you. Sound good?" The sound of very faint muffled voices was heard on the other end of the phone. Most likely the assistant was relaying this information. Anthea counted the seconds between her last word and the first word of the assistant. She reached 67 before he spoke once more.

"_That would be acceptable_." Anthea sighed silently.

"Excellent. Please forward the information to my email."

"_Right away."_ Opening her briefcase once more, Anthea pulled out her laptop. Looking around for somewhere nonintrusive to sit that wasn't covered in junk and not finding any, Anthea settled for the other end of the couch to Sherlock.

"I've just got some urgent business to deal with before I leave." Anthea gave an excuse to Sherlock, not caring for his response. He placed the manila file to the side, pushed his own laptop to the side, and got off the couch to walk towards the kitchen, most likely to check on that experiment.

"By all means." was his response. Whether it was sincere or sarcastic, Anthea didn't have time to care, she had some damage control to do. She tapped her nails on the edge of her laptop, her heart pounding at the same pace, as she waited for the email to come in. This was dangerous. What happened now affected multiple countries – if something we wrong at this stage it would be on her head.

Her laptop pinged as the high priority email came in. Anthea clicked on it to open it and took a deep breath as it took a second to load. As soon as the wall of text with multiple dot points loaded Anthea skimmed read it once to get the gist and then read it very carefully, taking in all the details. Sherlock re-entered the room and Anthea watched him skulk over to the couch as she formulated responses and results in her head. She tapped on the side of the laptop one, two, three more times before she clicked respond. She responded to each dot point carefully and precisely. Once happy, or better put somewhat satisfied, Anthea sent Walter a text to see if he was still out front, closed her laptop and placed it back into her briefcase.

"Sorry to cut the briefing short, Sherlock, but I've got some urgent business to deal with." Sherlock 'mmm'ed a response indicating no hard feelings – if any feelings at all. "Text or email me when you're done."

"It won't be long." Anthea walked to the door, turned around to face the flat once more, and flashed a smile at the younger Holmes before shutting the door and running down the stairs as fast as she could without tripping over her heels.

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><p>Walking through the Diogenes club with her heels clicking loudly lead to a lot of incredulous stares. Anthea ignored them, keeping her eyes straight ahead and walking like she owned the place. This was only her second time within the club itself and if she were to be the assistant of Mycroft Holmes for a long time they'd have to learn to accept her strutting in her on important business. One thing Anthea had discovered – fake some confidence and you looked like you belonged anywhere. The identification helped too. Once reaching what could possibly be perceived as the front desk Anthea dug out her government ID, for the blonde lady in white to look at she then pulled out her phone and in the notes section wrote;<p>

_Mycroft Holmes?_

The blonde woman peered over her glasses to read it then nodded once curtly. She got to her feet, walked around the desk and gestured for Anthea to follow her to the elevator. Anthea noticed that she was wearing white flats with a soft sole. Pursing her lips Anthea held back an eye roll with all her convictions. Out of the elevator, still silent, the blonde lead Anthea to a door a few doors down, pressed a button which appeared to do nothing. She nodded at Anthea and curtseyed, making Anthea uncomfortable as she nodded back, and left Anthea standing in front of the plain black door.

Mycroft's blank expression turned into a frown as he assessed Anthea's presence in the club. With a flick of his hand and a sidestep he gestured for her to enter the room. The tall man closed the door gently to avoid any noise before turning to face his assistant, blue eyes calculating all possibilities for her presence. He folded his arms and inwardly sighed.

"So, Anthea, what has happened?" A subtle smile crossed Anthea's lips at her boss' perception skills – she could have searched him out for so many reasons.

"Walter's waiting out front for us, sir." She spoke as flatly as him, nothing but their professional manner. "Some issues have arisen with the Cuba deal, the Defence minister is waiting for you at Downing Street." She watched as the subtle signs of deep thought crossed Mycroft's face – the slight raise of the eyebrows, the flicker of his gaze off her face to the cabinet to the left of her. Almost as quickly as they appeared they were gone and Mr. Holmes was collecting his phone and his umbrella from the desk and walking back towards the door.

"We best make haste then, my dear." Mycroft responded, walking past Anthea. Anthea nodded and followed two steps behind her boss.

Once they arrived at Downing Street they barely had time to press the doorbell before they were ushered inside and Mycroft was being passed a couple of files, the assistant Anthea spoke to on the phone talking his ear off. Once upstairs and in a conference room with the defence minister and the prime minister followed and a few more dignitaries the talk became less rushed and more calm as the people more used to dealing with Mr. Holmes allowed him time to synthesize the information. Anthea got out her blackberry and began collecting all emails from previous dealings with these particular people about this particular deal over the last six months and sending them to the assistant with a note to print them and bring them to the room. Mycroft's eyes were currently reading over the email Anthea recognised to be her own followed by how the government followed up with these instructions with a crease in his eyebrows as he frowned. Anthea was careful not to watch him or bring attention to herself as he read.

"Anthea." He hummed. Her eyes shot up, locking onto his steel blue eyes. She raised her eyebrows, gesturing for him to continue. "Did you do this?" His voice was high and Anthea could not detect his meaning from it and she fought the urge to look around to the other people in the room to see their reaction. She nodded once before finding her voice.

"Yes, sir." Her voice came out softer than she expected. He pursed his lips and read the currently open page once more before flicking it to the previous page. He nodded, looking over at Anthea with the smallest of smiles, eyes twinkling.

"Good work." Anthea felt her heart in her throat as she gulped.

"Thank you, sir." Her voice was ever so louder this time as she spoke.

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><p><em>Not-Anthea. The codes are links to a password protected download and the password to unlock them. Attached are the photos. Do what you will with the information. – SH<em>

As the men around her continued to talk with their raised voices and heightened anxiety she clicked open the attachment to see the photos. She felt her eyebrow rise as she examined it. Well, this was certainly interesting.

_Thanks. I've got to go have a chat with someone and then let you know what we want to do. – A._

Glancing over to her boss – who was looking absolutely fed up by his standards – Anthea cleared her throat to get his attention. Without looking at her, Mycroft leaned in closer to hear her; she leaned closer to and spoke quietly.

"A less important matter has arisen. If you don't mind I'd like to get it out of the way and leave you to it here, sir." Mycroft nodded, moving back into his previous sitting position and waving her off with his hand. Collecting her belongings Anthea silently nodded to the group and made her way from the meeting. As she walked down the stairs she sent another text to Walter to come and collect her.

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><p>Anthea knocked on Mr. Smead's door three times. She waited for the muffled sounds of acknowledgement before she opened the door and strutted in with all the confidence she had at the Diogenes club. The average build, average looking man with an average level position's eyes lit up when he saw Anthea enter. He stood up where he sat to welcome her.<p>

"Margaret!" His voice was over eager as he greeted her, gesturing to the chair opposite to his desk. Anthea smiled politely with a curt nod, walking over to the chair.

"Mr. Smead." She greeted back. Both of them sat down at once, Anthea crossing her legs with her hands placing firmly on her knee.

"I'm guessing that your presence here means that Mycroft's man found something." Anthea fought of the sigh that she wanted to expel at the man's eagerness and instead let a sly smile tug at the left side of her mouth. She got out her blackberry and found her way to where she had saved Sherlock's photos.

"I have a few questions for you." Anthea's uniform but confident tone came as she flickered through her phone. "My first one would have been 'does your wife know about your boyfriend?' if it had not been for the inclusion of her in the third and fourth photograph." She held out her phone for the man. She saw Mr. Smead gulp as a shaky hand took her phone and he flicked through the images. "So my question becomes; was it her boyfriend too, or did she find out about him, and in order to save your marriage you invited her into the relationship?" No answer from the oh-so average looking man. "Considering she didn't appear until the third image I'd go for the second opinion." Mr. Smead puts Anthea's phone down on the desk and slides it back to her. She picks it up, locks it, and pockets it in her suit jacket.

"So now you're going to delete all evidence and sweep this under the table, right?" He was fighting it, but Anthea could tell Smead's voice was as shaky as his hand had been. She tilted her head and looked him up and down once. Pursing her lips, Anthea paused before answering.

"Why should we?" She asked and watched as the man was shucked and tried to bumble a response together.

"Think of the scandal, Margaret!" He finally gasped. Anthea shrugged and nodded.

"You're right, this would be scandalous." She let the man simmer for a moment. "But it wouldn't affect Mr Holmes' work negatively in anyway. In fact, you have disagreed with my boss and delayed his work multiple times so if you were fired it wouldn't really affect him one way or another." The man shifted in his seat as Anthea watched him coolly. She watched as he slowly processed Anthea's words and fumbled once again to find a way to save his own skin.

"Come on, Margaret," He begged. "The scandal will be a lot of clean up for you two. There has got to be something I can do for you." Anthea shrugged once more, smiling carefully.

"You tell me, sir." A moment of silence as the man stared at his desk, thinking of something, anything. Anthe shifted her sitting position so that the other leg was now on top.

"I'll back all of Mycroft's ideas. I'll sign the next three documents that pass my desk with his name on it, no questions asked." His dark eyes to her own, holding her gaze, pleading. "Please, I can't survive this scandal." Anthea bit the inside of her lip as she pretended to consider it.

"I'm certain Mr. Holmes will find that acceptable." She sighed, getting to her feet and nodding to the man. He stood up and followed her in a hurry as she strode to the door.

"You will go and delete all evidence without a trace now, right?" He asked, voice oozing of desperation.

"Oh, yes." Anthea answered and watched as Smead's demeanour relaxed. "After I give a copy to Mr. Holmes for safekeeping, of course."

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><p><em>Sherlock, send me the URL and the password then destroy all your evidence. Thanks – A.<em>

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><p>Anthea was in her usual position in that familiar dark town car. She sat in her seat furiously typing away on her blackberry, answering texts and emails alike, occasionally chatting with Walter as they waited for Mr. Holmes outside of Downing Street. Mr. Holmes finished shaking hands with other leaving dignitaries before getting into the car with a verbal huff. Without a word Walter started driving back to the main office.<p>

"Disaster averted, sir?" She smirked over the screen of her blackberry. Mr. Holmes sighed again, twisting his umbrella in his hand.

"Barely, but yes." His tone was even and calm but Anthea could tell he was tired by the way he watched his umbrella as it turned. "Partially thanks to you, my dear." He hummed. Anthea kept her smirk as she shrugged.

"What can I say? It's a breeze after seeing Sherlock." She was rewarded with a light chuckle. The umbrella stopped turning as Mr Holmes' attention was turned to his PA, shifting in his seat to get a better view of her.

"Do tell me how Sherlock went today." Anthea smiled more, crinkling her nose, as she opened her phone to one of those photos yet again as she handed it over to her boss. Mycroft's reaction was almost identical to her own. "What did I tell you?" He mused, looking over to Anthea with a crooked eyebrow. She rolled her eyes, why should she be surprised by his astute deductions. He held the phone out and Anthea took it back, slipping it back into her handbag. "What further actions do you suggest that we take?" He asked.

"I already took care of it, sir." He titled his head and raised his eyebrows, a hint of what could be a smile on his lips. "I went and saw Mr. Smead. If we delete all evidence he'll agree with you and is willing to sign three contracts with no questions asked. Not counting our copy of the photos, but that goes without saying." An impressed look crossed Mycroft's face as he regarded his personal assistant.

"Not for the first time today do you impress me, my dear." Anthea's grin turned toothy as it grew at the praise.

"Thank you, sir." She beamed before shrugging it off. "It's been a busy day. I needed to take some responsibility for both our sakes." Mycroft's eyes twinkled before his attention was taken off her as he pulled out his own phone to check for emails.

"Keep up the pace and you'll allow me to get lazy." He mused.

"According to your brother you alre-"

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence." Mycroft cut Anthea off, holding a hand up to silence her, eyes shut, other hand to his temple. Her smile softened but her eyes shone with a naughty edge as she too brought her attention back to her own phone.

"Sorry, sir." She said honestly, regardless of her amusement. He sighed.

"I am in no mood for your whimsy today, my dear." A pause. "Try again tomorrow." Their eyes met and she flashed him that toothy smile once more and he rolled those steel coloured eyes.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** There you have it! What did you think? Did you enjoy it? What do you think of our girl? Anyway, I appreciate all of you taking the time to read this, your enjoyment is half the reason I do this :).**


	13. Her First Time Dealing with the Diet

**Author's Note:**** Thanks for the feedback last chapter, guys! I'm so pleased you enjoyed our view into how Anthea is developing on a professional level as well as the continuing build-up of trust. I didn't expect to include Sherlock in person again so soon but it was the perfect opportunity for him. Like I said, the reviews are my lifeblood so thanks. Please continue to read, review, and enjoy.**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>Her First Time Dealing with <strong>_**the Diet**_

She hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary – not at all – to begin with. Sometimes Mr. Holmes _forgot_ to eat – and she was starting to forget to have dinner herself when she got home late – but in this job that was easy. It wasn't until Anthea got to meet the perpetual energy that was Sherlock Holmes with his teasing comments towards his brother that generally followed the same suit did Anthea really notice. Anthea certainly didn't blame Sherlock for his comments, she didn't ever get siblings but she'd seen Jamie interact with her brother, and that coupled with what you saw on television Anthea understood that siblings could quarrel for absolutely no good reason and then forget about it ten seconds later. And what else did Sherlock have to pick on? When you're older, smarter, well-to-do brother has your lack of full time job, previous drug addiction, and occasional emotional outburst to pray on, sometimes you had to get the insults in wherever they could be found. As it turned out, Mycroft's diet or lack thereof was a pretty good pressure point.

Mr Holmes didn't have any serious problems. It seemed to her – gathering from his and Sherlock's conversations – he was just one of those people who were never happy and was eternally on a diet that he couldn't stick with. Anthea's , well, Alice's mother had been like that before she'd died and Anthea would bet good money were she around she'd still turn desert down claiming to be on a diet only to go out and buy chocolate later.

Generally whenever Sherlock asked "How's the diet" in that specific tone, Mycroft would respond with "Fine". Fine, that one word could be laced with so much subtext, even from the stonewall that was Mycroft Holmes. There would be the 'fine's where he truly meant it, when he'd come back from the Diogenes club slightly out of breath – she could only _presume _ he'd been exercising which amused her to no end – and whenever they'd go out for food or be offered free food he'd make decent choices. Then there were the flat 'fine's which meant that the diet was non-existent. Generally those weren't a cause of any stress, he would make choices on a day to day basis and the routine wouldn't be effected in the slightest. These were generally Anthea's favourites since she'd noticed the perpetual diet. It would be weeks like this that after a particularly horrible day she'd bring back some cookies from her favourite café around the office and she'd offer him one – a secret commiseration together. At the beginning Anthea thought nothing of this, but now, now she knew that Mycroft Holmes accepting anything off of you and not questioning your motives meant there was a certain level of trust there. The fact that this used to be proceeded by a quick glance over her and now he barely even looked at her when he took one – often with a sigh – just proved this and Anthea got a quite satisfaction every time this happened. Then there were the 'fine's laced with warning and venom, and of course sarcasm. This didn't necessarily mean Mr. Holmes was eating badly – the duo tended to do that on business meetings or on busy days and it just couldn't be helped and no one beat themselves up about it. No, those 'fine's meant that he was trying and failing. Mr. Holmes hated to fail at anything. It just wasn't supposed to happen. Ever.

That's where they were now, one of those times when Anthea could tell by the way he'd spoken to Sherlock on the phone a few days prior, that in Mycroft's eyes this diet of his was definitely not fine. Anthea didn't really understand it. There was nothing wrong with his appearance. He was quite lean in her eyes, in those tailored suits, standing tall, and walking around with that air of confidence that only he could pull off. Then there were those sparklingly blue, _intelligent_ eyes that were a few shades darker than his brother's… but that was well beside the point. The point was, Anthea looked at him the same way she looked at one of her sort of friends, and Jamie too, whenever they complained about needing to go on a diet because they'd put on like two pounds. Why? You're perfectly fine. It's a fluctuation, as long as nothing has changed in your lifestyle it'll go as quickly as it came.

That being said she was starting to hate seeing Mr. Holmes in this stage of the perpetual diet. It always looked and felt like there was an extra weight on his shoulders that were already carrying so much and for some reason it was starting to hurt her too. This wasn't an extra stress that she could shake off with a cup of tea, a joke, or taking on a little bit of work she wasn't expected to do. The fact that he'd never come out and told her about his stupid little habit was part of it. How could she bring it up if he didn't? Anthea could only imagine what he'd do if she'd asked him if his diet wasn't doing well. She could feel the daggers of his glare just thinking about it and she could imagine packing up her desk and trying to get home without being kidnapped and shipped off somewhere. That was an over exaggeration, sure, but where there's smoke there's fire.

Anthea sat at her desk, head resting in a palm while the other hand tapped lightly on her desk, completely oblivious to the CCTV footage playing on her computer that she was supposed to be watching, as she contemplated the situation. She just wanted to help. Why? Well because it was her job, wasn't it? To make things as easy as possible for Mycroft to do his job? When he had extra stresses then he wouldn't be as focused as he usually was on work. Clearly it was effecting Anthea doing her own job too, she shook her head clear and focused on the computer screen once again, trying to remember what she was looking for. If this were compromising both of them then surely it shouldn't be allowed to continue.

Anthea continued to go in and out of her thoughts as her work continued that day until she finally looked down to the bottom right hand corner of her desktop to see it was almost two in the afternoon. Absentmindedly Anthea's gaze fell onto the wooden door to her left. Neither she nor Mr. Holmes had stirred for a lunch break yet that day. Anthea bit her thumbnail while she contemplated what to do, stopping when she got a taste of her nail polish. Deciding on a course of action Anthea stood up, smoothed down her dress, and walked over to that foreboding wooden door. As per usual she knocked, waited for the sound of recognition, and let herself in.

"Sir?" Anthea sked lightly as she stepped into the familiar office. As she approached the desk Mycroft looked up from his work, and gave that fake half smile to his personal assistant, the one that didn't reach his eyes.

"Anthea." He greeted, his voice ever so slightly warmer than that cool look.

"Sir, I just noticed it's about two and neither of us have had lunch." She spoke calmly and coolly. She watched as the steel eyes flickered to the computer screen then back to her.

"It appears that you are correct. You're free to go whenever, as long as you let me know. You know this by now." He waved her off with his left hand as his right went to pick up a pen to continue working. Anthea stepped forward.

"Yes, I know, sir." She tried not to hesitate as she pushed forward. "It's just, there's this nice place a decent walk from here, it's not as expensive as some of the places we go to, but they have some great salads and sandwiches on pumpkin seed bread. I was thinking sir, if we took some work with us it would be worth the walk." Anthea felt herself go cold as Mycroft paused. Slowly he placed the pen back down, folded his hands together on the desk and regarded Anthea with a cold expression she had yet to see used on her. There were those daggers she'd been worried about. She did her best – and did rather well if you asked her – to keep the calm and innocent demeanour she held, casually standing there, looking slightly confused at this look. There was a moment of silence as both refused to break and Mr. Holmes calculated his response as carefully as ever.

"You want me to walk what you consider to be a slightly above reasonable distance to get a sandwich marginally better than one I could get without barely stepping a foot outside of this building?" She could see his brain ticking in that cool look. Anthea played up her smile and shrugged.

"Well _I _want the sandwich. I just want you to get some lunch, sir." It wasn't a lie, she'd already established her best efforts to keep him fuelled during work. "And sometimes it's just nice when we work outside of this place." Was this going too far? Was she being too casual? He scoffed, lip curling ever so slightly. That could have been her answer right there.

"Don't even try to play games with me, Miss James. I don't fall for your ammeter theatrics." Yup, she had played it too casual. Alright, so he's onto her, time to play the game differently. Looking at the portrait of the Queen behind Mr. Holmes, Anthea huffed, letting her body posture sink.

"Well there is more to it, sir." Her brown eyes flickered back to meet his. He still looked like he was taking everything she said with a grain of salt, his head tilted to the left as he listened. "Honestly, sir, I've been eating a lot more since I started this job." Not a lie, either, the best way to try and win this was to not try and lie. "I mean, I don't eat breakfast but I'm eating at least a banana before I leave home every day now." Anthea rolled her eyes at herself. "And the places we get food from, sir! I used to just eat two minute noodles and ramen. This job feeds me too well. I haven't changed sizes but surely you've noticed my clothes are a little tighter." Anthea visibly winced when she said that, not one to care for diets, Anthea like everyone still would not like attention brought to the fact that there might be just a few extra pounds here or there – like she said, nothing substantial. Mycroft, bless whatever type of soul he might have, didn't even let his gaze leave her eyes after she said this and did not even make any type of sign that he knew this to be true. Thank God Anthea worked with the Holmes brother who had some form of understanding of social graces. "I just want to start eating like normal again, sir." A long pause as they held each other's gaze.

"You mean like a poor student?" Mr. Holmes hummed. Anthea cracked a sly smile.

"I did tell you about the pumpkin seed bread? And light rye. These are expensive sandwiches, sir." She was rewarded with the scowl on Mr. Holmes' face being replaced with what could be considered a pull of a smile. He looked over to his computer and sighed, Anthea left wondering if she had lost the battle completely when victory seemed so near.

"Did you review the CCTV footage I gave you this morning?" He asked, eyes on the screen. Anthea nodded.

"Yes, sir." Silence.

"Bring your list of observations, we'll discuss them over lunch."

Success.

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><p>They walked next to each other on their way back from the café, Anthea with her hands in the pockets of her jacket, Mycroft swinging his umbrella. None of the tension of the office had followed them to lunch and after a semi productive work lunch the walked back in peace and silence. They were good at that, Anthea noted, being silent around each other. Some people silence was uncomfortable, that had never been the case with them. Mycroft kept his eyes forward when he broke the silence.<p>

"I know what you're doing, you know." No malice, no accusation, nothing in his voice, only his usual flat slightly demeaning tone. Anthea watched him for a brief moment as they walked. "You think I haven't noticed the differences in your observations since you've met my brother? You may try to hide it but it's as plain as the nose on your face, as they say." He hummed. Anthea smiled to herself as she looked down to the pavement. She unconsciously leaned in towards him.

"I knew you'd see through me. At least eventually, sir." She spoke lightly. "I was more worried about whether you'd fire me or humour me." She heard a sniff from next to her, one of those not quite a laugh noises.

"I could give you a lecture about how details such as this are not in your job description if that is what you wish, my dear." That light mocking tone was back and she imagined that extra weight had been lifted off his shoulders, or at least supported by her.

"Oh but it _is_ in the job description, sir." Anthea teased. "I saw you having a _personal_ issue and I tried to _assist _you with it. It's actually in the job title, sir." She was rewarded with an actual chuckle from her boss as she laughed softly in response.

"What a way to bend the rules." Mycroft mused, lips pursing in thought. Anthea shrugged, pulling her coat closer to her body and looking back at the pavement.

"I'm bound to pick up a trick or two, working for the master." They lulled back into a silence momentarily as they reached an intersection. They stood with a few other people, Anthea tucking her hair behind her ear, Mycroft twirling his umbrella into the pavement, as they waited for the signal to walk. Once passed the intersection and fallen behind the other people who had been waiting at the intersection Mycroft spoke once again.

"A few blocks passed that café of yours is a store that sells nothing but unique cakes." Anthea froze mid stride, Mycroft stopping a few paces in front of her and turning to face his assistant with an amused look and a raised eyebrow.

"Really?" Anthea incredulously asked. Mycroft, clearly finding this comical, looked her up and down. He nodded, eyes sparkling.

"I once had a tiramisu cake there that had crushed maltsters within the icing." Anthea half coughed and half laughed at the idea, staring at her boss.

"That sounds amazing." She mumbled to herself. Mycroft, still looking amused, nodded once in agreement. Well then, if Mycroft liked the place it would be phenomenal. Anthea bit her bottom as she looked over her shoulder, wondering if they'd already walked halfway today.

"Not today, Miss James." She heard from in front of her. Sighing and rolling her eyes, Anthea turned back to face forwards once again, nodded in defeat and began walking again. Of course not, not when they'd done so well today. "Of course, in a few weeks a lunch meeting might arise that just _has_ to be hosted there." Anthea's face light up as she turned her face to view her boss. He looked at her, eyes sparkling with mischief. "If it's precisely the halfway point between two offices it certainly cannot be helped."

"Oh, it would only be fair for our collaborators, sir."

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** What do you guys think? I'm having quite a difficult week so it was harder than usual to have this ready by today so I do hope it's up to your/my standards (though not as carefully edited, I'm afraid) and you all thoroughly enjoyed it. Don't worry about me, just general life stresses and stuff. Anyway let me know what you thought :).**


	14. The First Nicknames

**Author's Note:**** Thank you for the lovely reviews last chapter, particularly relating to characterisation. As someone who loves performing, it carries over to my writing and characterisation is a big deal to me so to get praise about that means I'm doing something right. Time for a bit of a fun chapter so let me know what you think of it. Read, review, and most importantly, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

**- re-uploaded 12 hours after original post to fix an error that was bugging me. -**

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><p><span><strong>The First Nicknames<strong>

They were sitting in the back of one of his sleek black town cars on the way home from the airport. Walter was to drop Anthea off at her apartment before taking Mr. Holmes home. A mission had gone quite horribly wrong and both of them just wanted to get back to something as mundane as their respective living abodes. Anthea was certain the smell of rusted copper pipes wouldn't get out of her suit for weeks and tale even longer for her hair. Perhaps she'd go to a hair dresser just for a nice shampoo and treatment – something she never thought she'd have the disposable income for but the smell would just keep reminding her of the failure. Anthea supposed failure wasn't completely the right word for it. Technically, _technically_ they had silenced the information leak – which was the whole point of the mission. However, they would not get further information from said leak about who they were being paid to give information to as the informant had died. Well, blown himself up and tried to take the whole building down with him. They had very few casualties, and James – the only other familiar face other than Mycroft that was there – had gotten out by the skin of his teeth. She had heard him saying to his partner that he was going to demand a raise from his immediate boss for this. If she had been in a better mood Anthea may have laughed at that, as it were, she only silently agreed.

Both abysmally tired passengers of the town car were silently gazing out of their separate windows when Mycroft picked up his phone from the seat separating them and turned it on. He grimaced at the screen – looking vehemently ill – she gathered at the number of text messages, emails, and missed calls. It made her dread turning on her phone – she'd have her personal work to deal with as well as all the texts and missed phone calls from people trying to get hold of Mr. Holmes. Perhaps they should have told more people where they were going, or made up a better excuse. Hell, Mr. Holmes wouldn't have even dreamed of going himself if the information hadn't needed immediate action. Look how well that turned out for them. Oh well, at least Anthea had got to see Mycroft's gunmanship. That had been more impressive than she had expected to be, he'd been just as professional as James and the other agents and at points Anthea had found herself wondering just how often he'd had to do something like this. It had been Anthea's first time really using her training with guns and lucky she hadn't needed to actually shoot it yet, just hold it close by. Mr. Holmes held out the offending phone on his palm towards Anthea and returned to look out the window.

"Sift through my text messages please, and only bother reading out the important ones. I have no patience to deal with drivel at this time." What, and she did? Regardless, and with a completely silent sigh and a role of her brown eyes, Anthea took the phone from his palm and unlocked it with the current password. She saw in the corner of her eye as Mycroft pulled on the cufflink on his now dirty shirt sleeve as it came to his lap. She wondered briefly if he'd have that suit dry-cleaned or just get rid of it. Hopefully not get rid of it, it was one of the pinstriped suits, Anthea always thought the pinstripes elongated him and made him look taller than he already was. Blinking her eyes wide a few times to focus, Anthea's attention went to the phone in her hand.

_Unimportant._

_Legislation._

_Confirmation of attendance for some event._

_Unimportant._

_Unimportant._

_Lestrade. _Anthea opened it and read the message carefully, waiting for there to be a catch or something, anything, bad about Sherlock. _Nothing bad, can be ignored_.

"Mr. Harrington would like to know how long until his plan for the restructuring of MI6 is approved." She spoke, not taking her eyes off the screen of his phone that she held in both hands. Her black nail polish was chipping from the tips. That was not good, she'd have to take it off before work tomorrow which meant not going straight to bed when she got home.

"Tell him I need to have a word with him regarding those plans." There was a sigh in his voice Anthea would not have been able to detect a little while back. She wondered how many of the very little tell-tale signs of Mycroft Holmes she had picked up so far. Perhaps she should make a list. "Tomorrow afternoon." She answered the text message in Mycroft's voice as she often did after missions such as these.

_Tomorrow Afternoon. We need to talk – MH._

Sent.

_Legislation_

_Something about Iraq… was that important?_

"Is the issue in Iraq important at the moment, sir?" She quirked an eyebrow though she knew he was still looking out the window.

"It's important but not imperative. I'll look at it this evening." Again, Anthea nodded though he wasn't watching and she wasn't watching him. Silent habits forming perhaps?

_Unimportant._

_Invitation to a party that he'd never go to in a million years._

_Mummy._

_Oh…._

Suddenly Anthea found her eyebrow raising again.

"You have a text message from your mother…" Her voice was slightly higher than usual. There was a pregnant pause. Hesitation, perhaps?

"Oh?" Was the response she receive in that oh-so carefully placed casual tone, and from the corner of her eye she could see him tilt his head ever so slightly in his direction. Anthea decided that meant she should read it – that was her defence anyway.

"It says 'Have you checked up on Sherlock lately? You know I worry about you two, Mycie…'" Her voice trailed off and she was trying her best – and failing – to stifle a laugh that was coming out as choking noise. Mycroft's whole body tensed as he clenched his jaw and slowly raised his head. "She called you Mycie…" Anthea tried to compose herself – still failing – speaking between what could only be described as hiccups of laughter every now and then when she failed to take in a deep breath.

"Yes." He said calmly – though irritation was clear in his voice. He was doing an amazing job at keeping any signs of embarrassment off his face. Unfortunately his calm did nothing to placate Anthea's amusement.

"It's spelt M-Y-C-I-E." Anthea spoke slowly, pursing her lips to stop from both grinning and laughing. He nodded in response. Anthea could tell by how his clinched and unclenched that Mr. Holmes was missing the support of his umbrella.

"I know how she spells it." Slight curtness this time.

"Because your name begins with M-Y-C." She was all but giggling now, crumpling up on herself, phone clutched in her left hand being held to her chest.

"I am aware of how my name is spelt, Miss James."

"You-" She was looking at him now – face full of levity. "The great and powerful Mycroft Holmes." He was looking at her so coldly that it would have frightened her usually. Unfortunately Anthea was too far gone. She took a deep breath. "Have the same nickname as one of the ninja turtles." She lost herself in a fit of laughter unable to control herself. Learning something like this about a figure who was almost omnipotent was like learning that the pope wore pink frilly underwear. Her side was beginning to hurt and she clutched at it, mobile still in hand. This laughter was allowed to continue for exactly a minute, she'd muse later that he'd probably silently counted to sixty, before Mr. Holmes interrupted.

"If you are quite done, Anthea." He spoke with a sigh and looked out the window. He was asking her to stop. She sighed and tried to calm herself down – mostly due to the pain in her side. She rubbed her eyes, being allowed to due to the lack of makeup for once, looking at her highly embarrassed and extremely powerful boss.

"I'm so sorry, sir." She said, not being able to keep that smile from radiating on her face. "I've only just started coming to terms with the fact that you have a brother and a mother." Her smile faded as she gained control of herself. He chose now to look at her once again, steel locking onto mahogany. "It's a little much for my mind to handle the fact that you have a nickname, much less-" And she lost control of herself again managing to get out "Mycie." again before falling back into laughter. The laughter was so strong now that it was practically silent. She bent over and covered her face into the leather upholstery – out of the involuntary movements that came with laughter or trying to hide the shame of lack of self-control from her boss, she wasn't sure. Certainly, Anthea was embarrassed, but this was just too good.

"Really now, Anthea." He was looking out the window again, the tenseness clear in the lines of his neck. "You have yet to call me anything other than 'Mr. Holmes' and you choose to skip first name basis and go straight to _Myc_?" He'd turned to look at her on the last word, spitting it out like it was the most distasteful thing he'd ever said, which was most likely how he felt about it. Anthea looked up and blinked for a few seconds before letting out a giggle she was trying to stifle.

"I hadn't even thought of Myc!" She grinned alongside her giggling. His gaze turned cold.

"Oh shut up, Alice in Wonderland." He retorted. Anthea gasped, sitting upright again, staring at him in disbelief. That smug smile of his back on his face. How did he know she hated that? She'd probably rolled her eyes at something Alice in Wonderland related and he'd worked it out. Curse those perception skills. "Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, my dear." Mr. Holmes said as he raised his eyebrows triumphantly. Anthea sighed and returned to her business as usual pose, flattening her suit jacket – though hers _would_ be thrown out, and going through the phone's messages once again. Mycroft turned around, arm on the arm rest, legs folded, looking absolutely proud of himself. So the master wins again.

_A meeting being rescheduled._

_Unimportant._

_Request for documents, can be dealt with later._

"No more important messages sir, all can be dealt with tomorrow or later." She placed the phone down on the seat between them. He picked it up and pocketed it in his breast pocket.

"Thank you, Miss Liddell." Anthea visibly flinched. She blinked twice, processing, before pulling out her own phone and turning it on, smirking down towards the screen.

"You're welcome, Mycie." The smirk on both their faces just barely seen under all those layers of training and skill. Something in their vast levels of professionalism had broken then and there, something that Anthea hadn't even noticed was in place until she realised that suddenly she felt ever so more comfortable in the back of that town car with her boss. After all, she knew he trusted her, but how could she really trust an omnipotent being until she learnt something further than 'Mummy' and 'Sherlock'? Something like Mycie.

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><p>Anthea couldn't hide the grin on her face when she turned up to work the next day when she turned up and found a bouquet of roses already in a vase on her desk. One side was arranged with white roses, the other with red, some of the red placed haphazardly within the white section. Though she kept the smile on her face, Anthea rolled her eyes at the sheer absurdity and playfulness. A yellow post-it note was stuck to the vase with that delicate hand writing.<p>

_I only had time to paint half of them red._

_Don't tell the queen._

_- MH_

She took a photo and sent it to Jamie.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** What do you think? I wrote this chapter a little while ago but the original draft was A LOT shorter so I made it a little more detailed and a little more fun – also picking up on what I was **_**trying**_** to say when I wrote things that turned out not to make sense :P. Thanks again to the regular guest reviewer known as Wink since I can't thank you personally. Please leave a review guys, I love to hear from you!**


	15. Her First Injury

**Author's Note:**** I am floored by the feedback from last chapter, guys! I'm glad you all liked that fun little chapter. Oh, and we passed 50 reviews! Yay! *confetti*. Analena was the 50th reviewer and is a consistent one too, so, thank you "my dear" :P. This made me finally get around to creating a cover for this fic – nothing special but on topic. Thanks for all the support guys, I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much! Please, read, review, and enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>Her First Injury<strong>

The meeting with the minister for foreign affairs and the secretary for the state of defence had gone on for much, much longer than necessary and Anthea was one hundred percent positive that she didn't actually need to be there. The men danced around the same few points for hours arguing incisively and Anthea had a feeling that Mycroft had only insisted on her presence under the notion of 'If I'm going down I'm taking you with me'. If it were possible to die of boredom she would have died within the first half an hour. For the most part Mr. Holmes had looked like he was barely paying attention and Anthea's notes were little more than a handful of notes followed by a few rough sketches. One of the sketches may or may not have been a cartoon drawing of the secretary of defence's head exploding. She'd deny it if need be. At one point she was in the middle of sketching rain falling on her previously drawn umbrella when Mycroft – while fiddling with a pen in his hand, Anthea might add – had looked over and raised an eyebrow at her. She subtly smiled back. He had rolled those sparkling blue eyes and then pretended to nod in agreement to something he'd lost any interest in. If she was bored, imagine what was going on in Mr. Holmes' head.

Currently the duo were walking back to their own office a few floors up at a rather brisk pace – very relieved to have that ordeal behind them and very behind in the day's agenda. Anthea would have to pick up some of those cookies from that bakery nearby later to counteract the boredom and waste of their time. A meeting like that called for double chocolate chip regardless of whatever phase of the diet Mycroft was on. Like stated earlier, if one of them goes down, they're both going down.

"We will have to reschedule the phone conference with Australia for another day, there is simply no time and that is the least pressing matter." Mycroft spoke as they walked, checking the time on his phone. Anthea nodded once.

"I sent an email to the Australian Prime Minister's office an hour ago, sir, asking if Thursday morning our time will be suitable. I am awaiting a reply but I believe it's out of office time in Canberra now, sir." She felt him give her a quick look up and down – hopefully impressed.

"Excellent work, my dear." Very pleased then, brilliant. Anthea couldn't help but let a smile play on her face slightly.

"Just doing my job, sir." He hummed quietly in response, his eyebrows lifting slightly. Anthea shifts the folders she is carrying to fit under one arm and pulled out her blackberry, checking quickly for a response from the Australian Government. No response but an email already from the state of defence about the behaviour of the secretary. Anthea sighed. "The children have not stopped fighting yet, sir. One is telling teacher via email already." The pair reached the stairs. Mycroft lifted his umbrella to hold it rather than walk with it as they began ascending. He clicked his tongue in disapproval.

"Let them work it out in the playground." He breathed. "They'll soon realise my solution – while not completely pleasing either of them – is the most plausible." They passed an agent on the stairs who smiled at them, Anthea smiled back as both she and Mycroft nodded in return.

"You mean the solution you gave them at the beginning of the meeting, sir?" She scoffed. As Anthea stepped on the next stair the heel of her shoe slid out and what felt like a minute but was only a few seconds, Anthea collapsed onto her front and slid down a few stairs. Mycroft stopped in his tracks, blinked twice, and slowly turned around to see his personal assistant flat in the middle of the staircase, the contents of her handbag spread out and the file a few steps above her. Anthea kept her eyes closed, out of embarrassment more than anything. She didn't even want to know who just saw that.

"Anthea?" She heard Mycroft's carefully controlled voice call for her. After a brief moment of silence to pull herself together Anthea groaned and rolled onto her back, pulling herself into sitting position lengthways across a step. Her ankle was killing her so she gingerly held it slightly rested on the other, her palms were red, scraped or burnt on the carpet, and one wrist felt slightly jarred. She looked up at her boss with a look that was a mixture of pain and embarrassment – not being able to save herself with a neutral face. She watched for a second as his bright blue eyes took in her face and then scanned her full length with a calm blank canvas of a face, not moving from the top step. She realised he was waiting for a response, any response, in order to fully analyse her wellbeing. Anthea took a deep breath, pushing her hair now dishevelled out of her face.

"Well that was stupid." A crack in the façade as what could possibly be described as the Mycroft Holmes version of a concerned smile flashed on his features before he descended down the stairs to kneel next to her. Placing the beloved umbrella down, he began with picking up the contents of her bag to which she then helped with, without moving anything too quickly.

"It was new, I'll let you have that." A hint of amusement in that lyrical voice. Anthea made a noise that could have been either a cry or a laugh, to be honest she didn't even know which one it was. Once the items were placed safely back in her handbag he eyed her carefully again. "Care to give me your own assessment of the damage? Besides your ego." His eyes twinkled with the small dig.

"A little shocked, hands and wrists are slightly pained but that will go away in time. It's my left ankle that's the worry." First Mr Holmes looked at the leg she was holding in the air ever so slightly, next he was positioning himself against the opposite wall to Anthea, placing her foot on his lap and removing her heel. At first Anthea tensed at the warm hands on her bare foot, unsure as to how to react, but soon relaxed into it. Mycroft gently poked and prodded in different places with his thumb until he heard Anthea hiss in pain, her face contorting as she looked away. One hand gingerly holding her foot under her Achilles tendon, the other placed on the top of her foot he seemed to hum to himself.

"Now my dear, can you move your foot for me?" Eyeing her foot carefully and biting the inside of her lip Anthea slowly and carefully moved her foot up and down.

"I can." See answered shakily. "But it hurts." Mycroft's eyes locked onto hers, the careful observation now replaced with something ever so slightly lighter.

"Well, it's only a sprain, my dear." He patted her foot with his hand as he spoke. "So you're not going to be hindrance to me for too long." Anthea scoffed at this and rolled her eyes, but she felt a tug on the corner of her mouth, trying to pull it into a smile. "The issue is, however, getting you back to the top of the stairs." Flashing chocolate eyes to the top of the stairs and then trailing down to where she currently sat, Anthea took off her other shoe and pushed further against the wall.

"If you help me up, sir, I might be able to hop to the top." Anthea mused, a determination falling onto her.

"Don't be ridiculous, Anthea, you'll only hurt yourself more. Then what use will you be?"

"I'll be fine, it's not a big deal, sir." She looked from the top of the stairs to her boss to see him giving her a poignant look. Straight mouth, cold eyes, one eyebrow raised.

"This coming from the young lady who just _slid_ down the stairs." Anthea shook her head and sighed.

"That's true." Her voice was quiet as she spoke. Anthea took her foot off of her boss's lap and moved to lean on the wall for support as tried to stand up. "Help me get to my, er, foot." Mr. Holmes got up, placing both of Anthea's shoes, the file, and his umbrella neatly together on the step just above them. He took Anthea's handbag, brushed himself off and then offered his assistant a hand. He pulled her up and steadied her with the hand holding her bag. Mycroft handed her the bag as she placed a hand on the wall for support, standing on one bare foot on the dirty carpeted stairs. "Thank you." She said, placing the strap on her shoulder, brushing off her own clothes the way he had done moments ago. Anthea bit her lip and contemplated how to get up the stairs. She could hobble up but knowing her boss he would not approve of putting such pressure on a fresh injury. He certainly did not approve of her hopping up and she had to admit that would be dangerous. What Anthea would do if alone would probably be sitting back down and butt crawling it up like a complete idiot but she was at work – in public – and there were far too many important figures here who she could not embarrass herself or Mr. Holmes in front of. Plus, she had worn a skirt today with tights, rather than pants. Anthea was brought out of her thoughts as she noticed Mr. Holmes step towards her.

"I've got a solution." He spoke in that crafted tone of his that sometimes drove Anthea mad. He stepped further into her personal space, she was now well and truly looking up at him. "Lock your arms around my neck." Anthea swallowed.

"Are you sure, sir?" She had already learnt Mycroft's attitude towards sentiment and emotion, and could count on one hand the number of times he'd touched someone that wasn't a necessary handshake. Anyone else offering help like this Anthea wouldn't think twice of it, but this gave her that same sense she got when disturbing his peace and quiet – it was like poking the lion. Mr. Holmes shook his head as he waved her off.

"It's necessary. Now be quick about it, the sooner the better." With a quick moment of hesitation Anthea's hands locked together behind Mycroft's neck. In one smooth movement his hands went to Anthea's waste, lifting her up close to his body and he climbed the stairs with a single grunt. Anthea found herself unsure as to where to look as she tried to comprehend just how she felt in this situation. Thankful? Impressed? Embarrassed? Surprised? She found herself unsure where to look, it felt way too intimate to look at the man directly so Anthea found herself awkwardly staring at her bare feet. Mycroft placed her down gingerly on her good foot at the top of the stairs. He walked back down to gather their things, umbrella dangled on his arm, her shoes held in the fingers of his right hand, file in the left.

"This is ridiculous." Anthea chuckled as she watched him walking back up the stairs – his eyes twinkled with some amusement. "I'm not some damsel who needs rescuing. That's not my thing."

"I wouldn't have hired you if it were your... '_thing_'." He said at the top of the stairs, handing Anthea her heels. "I have no time for more damsels, Sherlock is bad enough, thank you." _And yet here we are_ Anthea thought to herself. "Now if you wish to use me as your support once more, we shall try and get you to your desk." Anthea rolled her eyes at her embarrassment once more. She placed the arm that did not contain her shoes around her boss's shoulder as his went under her arm and they hobbled back to their office.

They made it back to the office within a decent speed, only having to stop and exchange pleasantries with very few political figures. Only one who dared ask what had happened – and luckily it was one who Anthea had made quite the friendly impression with so she had the opportunity to make light of it all. If this felt weird to Anthea, she could only imagine what it looked like. Once they got back to their small wooden office Anthea was placed at chair as she rested her foot on an empty space on her desk, dropping her shoes and her handbag next to the bin next to the wooden desk. She groaned and closed her eyes, trying to pretend that none of this happened. Mycroft chuckled softly. He placed the slightly dishevelled file on Anthea's desk.

"I'll see if we have anything to use as a provisional icepack in the freezer." He said, walking to the kitchenette. Anthea opened her eyes, staring at the white, speckled roof.

"I have an actual icepack in there." She called out. Sure enough, Mycroft returned, holding the clear bag with the blue gel filling up to his face in one hand with an eyebrow raised. Anthea held her smirk back as much as she could as she shrugged. "I'm the assistant of a minor government official, I have to be prepared for anything."

"Indeed," He mumbled to himself. He handed Anthea the icepack and this time disappeared into his office, leaving the door open. Anthea placed the icepack at the source of pain an inwardly sighed at the relief. She had gotten the icepack in fear of headaches or migraines for either of the office's inhabitants after working at the computer for long periods of time and right now she was very pleased at her foresight. When Mycroft returned he had a bandage in his hand. "I see my first aid kit has also recently been stocked." Anthea grinned at his obtuse observation.

"Like I said, ready for anything, sir." He raised an eyebrow and shook his head ever so slightly.

"Not prepared enough, I'm afraid. A brace would have been much more preferable in this situation but a bandage _will_ do." He perched himself on the edge of Anthea's desk close to her raised foot.

"I'll create a stairs emergency kit with one in it specifically for situations like this, sir." She joked. He took the icepack off her foot, finding no empty place on her desk handed it to her.

"Too late for that, my dear." He smirked. Anthea watched as Mycroft Holmes lifted her foot carefully and wound it tightly. Raising her hand to her face, Anthea rubbed her brow, suddenly overcome with embarrassment. Anthea, as Mycroft Holmes' personal assistant was here to help him, she catered to his every whim, within reason of course. She was supposed to help him out, he wasn't supposed to help her because she was foolish enough to fall down stairs in a building full of influential people that could make or break her. This had to be some kind of first for the both of them.

"Of all the ways I expected to hurt myself on this job, I did not see this happening." She sighed. She saw Mr. Holmes' eyes briefly flash up to examine her before returning to what his hands were doing. She could see the slight raise of his eyebrow, the slight quirk of his lip.

"Pray tell, Anthea, what did you expect to do?" Again, Anthea shrugged.

"I don't know, fighting with someone perhaps, that building that exploded a few weeks ago. Foiling an assassination attempt, jumping in the way of a bullet would be painful and I'd rather it not happen but it would have been a lot cooler than this, sir." She heard as he chuckled to himself.

"While it's nice to know you've already prepared yourself to defend a minor government official, my dear, a story that includes something across the lines of 'my PA fell face first down the stairs' is much preferable and far more amusing than 'someone made an attempt on my life'." Anthea found herself for the second time making that noise that was somewhere between laughing and crying, holding the icepack up to shield her face as Mycroft pinned up the bandage.

"You really didn't have to do this, sir." She said, lowering her foot off her desk. Mycroft made no move to answer, simply observed her again before raising his eyebrows and pressing his lips together. Anthea smiled at him then turned back to her computer. Mycroft turned to walk into his private office.

"When my next meeting arrives, please send her straight through. Remind me to leave for the club by two."

_Click_. The office door closed.

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><p>At five in the afternoon Anthea was sitting in the back of one of Mycroft's town cars, with one high heel on her good foot, as she typed on her blackberry. She answered email after email while waiting for Mycroft to emerge from the Diogenes club in order to take him to their next scheduled appointment. She heard the click of the car door opening and the slam of it shutting but did not look up until a brown shoebox was shoved into her line of sight.<p>

"Sir?" She asked, locking her phone in one hand and taking hold of the shoebox with the other.

"I can't have you walking around with one shoe on, it's inappropriate and humiliating, and judging by your choice in apparel I highly doubt you have any flat shoes that aren't exceptionally casual in appearance." Anthea fought the urge to roll her eyes, partly because he was right about her shoes, and partly because she just expected him to speak that way. Biting the inside of her lip, Anthea opened the box to reveal a pair of black flat Chanel Mary Janes. Inwardly Anthea didn't know whether to laugh or to gasp. Of course he would have exquisite taste, just look at how he dresses himself. One of those suits probably cost more than Anthea's rent. Although, with her current pay check Anthea could most certainly afford a much nicer place now but what was the point when she barely occupied any space these days? She settled for a slightly amused smile.

"Mr. Holmes." Anthea's breathed. She took one from the box, holding it gingerly as if it were alive, before eagerly putting it on her foot.

"If I were to get you to wear flat shoes, regardless of whether it were for your health or not, I deduced it may take some incentive." Anthea stared down at the shoe in awe.

"Well, how can I say no to these babies?" Anthea smiled at the shoe as if it could smile back. "Thank you, sir." She said quietly.

"Consider it both an appreciation of your hard work and an expression of sympathy for your humiliation."

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** Hope you liked it! Once again, while editing this chapter it seemed to gain another 500 words, not that that's a bad thing – descriptions and all that. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my guest reviewers once again: Wink, Guest, and Meep. By the way Meep, your English was almost impeccable! Please, my wonderful readers who I aim to please, feel free to review!**


	16. The First Time She Met His Parents

**Author's Note:**** Thank you so much guys for the splendid feedback last chapter! I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate it. This fic is special to me and I love hearing what you're thinking. I hope you enjoy this chapter, I've been looking forward to it. Read, review, and of course; enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time She Met His Parents<strong>

"Mycroft Holmes' office." Anthea answered the landline phone by her desk without identifying herself. Anyone who called this office knew either her or Mr. Holmes would answer it. She tapped on the desk with her ballpoint pen.

"_Hello, Anthea_." Anthea's senses heightened at the sound of the lyrical voice of her boss. He had been out of the office all afternoon. She shifted up in her chair.

"Sir?" She asked, looking for her blackberry on the desk in case something needed to be done. "Is everything ok?"

"_No, don't worry, my dear."_ Anthea felt herself sink back slightly in her desk chair. _"I do however have a scheduling issue that will require your assistance."_ Anthea put the lid on her pen and slid it into the white coffee mug she had turned into a pen holder. _"This meeting is running long and I have some… somewhat important guests arriving at my house any minute now."_

"Would you like me to call ahead and reschedule for you, sir?" She hummed.

"_No, that's impossible. What I need you to do is go ahead and let them inside. I have called security to lend you the key to the main house. All you need to do is let them in and leave." _Anthea nodded absently.

"Yes, sir, right away." She said as she began to pack up any truly important items into her handbag.

"_Thank you, Anthea. I'll see you later."_

"Goodbye sir."

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><p>When Anthea's car pulled up to the driveway right in front of Mycroft's house a taxi was just leaving. Anthea allowed herself a subtle smile as she put her car in park, her timing was becoming impeccable. An elderly couple stood at the front door with a suitcase each, the woman chatting away happily as the man merely nodded. Anthea eyebrows knotted into a frown, she had no idea who these people were. What older couple could be important enough to be allowed access to Mr. Holmes' private abode? Anthea had to <em>ask<em> during an emergency to even find out this address. As Anthea approached the lady stopped talking, looking at Anthea, the pair smiling with sparkling blue eyes. Anthea smiled, walking pass them to unlock the front door.

"Good afternoon, I'm Mr. Holmes' personal assistant, Janet." She spoke flatly, eyes on the door so she missed the glance shared between the couple, the woman raising her eyebrows.

"That's a lovely name." The lady hummed and Anthea turned around as she swung open the door just in time to see the man chuckle quietly. Anthea had to stop herself from raising an eyebrow. She stepped to the side and gestured towards the open door for them to enter.

"Would you like some help with your suitcases?" Anthea asked as she watched the gentleman grab both handles and the lady started for the front door.

"No that's fine, dear, Siger has got them, don't you love?"

"Yes, love." Watching with faint amusement at this odd duo, Anthea waited for both of them to be in the large empty house before following behind them and locking the door.

"It might be empty, but at least this one is clean." The man, Siger, chuckled. His wife frowned and swatted him playfully on the shoulder. Once again, Anthea found her frown deepening and fighting the urge to cross her arms on her chest. Pulling her jacket down to neaten it and clearing her throat, Anthea moved passed them to lead them to the kitchen counter.

"Mr. Holmes is delayed, he'll be here shortly. Can I get either of you a cup of tea or coffee?" The lady patted Anthea on the shoulder and passed her in the kitchen. Anthea blinked as the control began slipping through her fingers.

"Don't worry yourself, dear, I can do it. Would you like anything?" She asked, taking the kettle and filling it up with water at the sink. Anthea's eyes went from the lady to the man, now making himself comfortable at the counter, and back to the lady. This was odd. Anthea shook her head to find her voice.

"Ah, no thank you, I'm fine."

"Nonsense, you two are always too busy to stop. I'll make you a tea, dear." She opened the cabinet to her right and pulled out two different sets of tea bags. "The best part of Mycie's kitchen is he still keeps it exactly like mine. I can't make anything at Sherly's." Anthea's mind went completely blank. Had she just heard what she thought she heard? _Mycie_? _Sherly_? The man chuckled.

"Sherlock is chaos on legs. Myc is so stuck in his ways he couldn't bare not to keep it the same way we have it at home." He answered and the couple smiled warmly at each other, clearly reliving some memories. Anthea blanched, taking a sharp breath and running a hand running through her brown wavy hair.

"Oh God, sorry, I didn't know who you were!" She found herself blathering. "My name is actually, kind of, Anthea." The kettle started whistling and Mrs. Holmes began pouring three cups of tea.

"Yes, we know." Mr Holmes smiled at Anthea. "Sorry to hear about what happened on the stairs the other week." If it was possible Anthea felt herself go even paler. Mrs. Holmes' carried over the three cups of tea.

"How is your ankle, dear?" She handed one to Anthea. The girl, feeling like a dear in the headlights took it. Of course they were his parents, the eyes, the mannerisms. It was all there. Better yet, he had told them about her fall down the stairs? Judging from how they talked, Anthea had gathered Mycroft and Sherlock had a good relationship with their parents but she could barely picture them having a conversation with them over the phone or whatever. How embarrassing for her. Of course, if you had an extremely confidential job and your father asked you how work was this week what would you tell them? Anthea mused. You certainly can't tell him that you were in negations with the Australian government but you can tell him that your assistant tripped up the stairs. Great.

"Um, a lot better, thanks." Anthea frowned into her cup. "I'm so sorry for the super professional act, I should have known who you were. Sometimes I forget Mr. Holmes, um, _Mycroft_" The first name alone felt so odd on Anthea's tongue. "And Sherlock used to be children." This got a hearty laugh from Mr. Holmes and a very warm smile from Mrs. Holmes.

"Oh they were kids, and quite the handfuls at times too." Anthea laughed.

"Both of them, really?" She asked with a grin. "I mean, no offence, but I can see Sherlock being difficult, but Mycroft?" The raised eyebrow look that Mrs Holmes gave her husband at that moment was pure Mycroft, the mischievousness in her eyes was Sherlock. She clicked her tongue.

"Sherlock caused minor fires and got into trouble around the neighbourhood. Naughty Sherlock stuff that we all expected. If Mycroft ever got in trouble he made sure it was worth it." She shook her head with a heavy sigh. "When he was thirteen the secret service came to our house looking for him after he'd sent the Prime Minister a letter about some thing or another. Almost gave me a heart attack!" Anthea almost choked on her tea as she began to laugh. Why did that not surprise her in the slightest?

"That's how the boy got his scholarship to a university of his choice, though." Mr Holmes smiled warmly at Anthea, perhaps a tad of pride behind his eyes. Mrs. Holmes hummed in disapproval, tapping her fingers on the counter.

"That kid didn't need to scare us half to death and start rumours around the neighbourhood to get a scholarship." Anthea sighed, grinning from ear to ear.

"How cute." She mused out loud. "I can so see a little teenaged Mycroft Holmes, arms crossed, giving the secret service a dressing down. Saying something like 'I sent that letter weeks ago and you're only responding now? Oh, what good hands our country is in'." A light laugh was shared amongst the trio when all of a sudden Mrs. Holmes' eyes that shone the same colour of Sherlock's lit up and she gestured broadly at her husband.

"Siger love, show Anthea the photo you keep in your wallet." Mr. Holmes put down his cup of tea gingerly and pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his pants. Carefully he took a photo out of his wallet, Anthea could see from the distance that the edges were soft and torn from wear and tear, and handed to Anthea. As soon as Anthea had it in hand she gawked, free hand brought up to her mouth.

"Aww!" She genuinely giggled. "Look at them!" It was a picture of a very young Sherlock and Mycroft in what looked like his early teen years. Sherlock and Mycroft both appeared to be laughing at something, Sherlock very eagerly, Mycroft with that quirked eyebrow of his already. Sherlock's wild curls fell in his face, and ever Mycroft's dark straight hair wasn't styled and fell slightly into his eyes. Bright blue eyes shone of intelligence on both of them. Children, they were actually children and here, in her hand, was the proof. The image filled Anthea with a positively warm feeling. "They're absolutely adorable!" She couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. The parents exchanged a warm look as Mrs. Holmes moved closer to look at the image over Anthea's shoulder. "How old are they?"

"Sherlock is eight and Mycroft is fifteen." Her voice was filled with adoration as she looked at her sons. She looked up at her husband wistfully. "That was taken not long after Myc had lost his baby fat and had a growth spurt. The poor thing was all limbs and he was nowhere near as graceful as he liked to be. Sherlock couldn't stop laughing at him." Anthea chuckled, not taking her eyes off the photo. She could not get over Sherlock's young innocence or how teenaged boy already oozed of the same aura her boss gave off.

"Myc got his revenge when Sherlock grew up." Mr Holmes said. Anthea chuckled, placing the photo down on the counter and pulling out her blackberry.

"Do you mind if I take a picture of it?" Anthea asked, chocolate eyes searching both pairs of blue ones eagerly. Mrs. Holmes rubbed Anthea on the arm warmly.

"Go right ahead, dear." And so Anthea took a photo of the two young boys, that grin still plastered on her face. She can't really say what compelled her to want a copy of it – they just looked so adorable and for some reason it made Anthea's heart swell to see those two vastly intelligent _idiots_ who are always at each other's throats as children and smiling. She handed the original photo back to the senior Mr. Holmes.

"Thanks so much for showing me that." She spoke honestly. "It's amazing."

* * *

><p>Anthea had to admit that Mycroft Holmes' face was perfectly calm and neutral when he walked into the living room to see his mother and Anthea sitting on the couch, Mr. Holmes in an arm chair, all with cups of tea in their hands and a packet of biscuits open on the counter. Anthea couldn't help but watch as those blue eyes slowly took in the sight, wondering what was going on in his head.<p>

"Oh, hello sweetheart." Mrs Holmes cooed, standing up and walking over to give her oldest son a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Mycroft, somehow to Anthea's shock, took it quite well, not completely hugging his mother back, but placing one hand on her back in some show of reciprocation. It was… well, adorable. That was a word she never expected to apply to Mycroft Holmes, and she had already used it multiple times today. Mr. Holmes the senior got out of his chair.

"Mummy." Mycroft spoke quietly and so very collectedly as he responded to his mother's greeting. "Father." Mr Holmes the senior patted Mycroft on the back and gave him the warmest smile Anthea had ever seen. She was baffled, how did such cold creatures as the Holmes brothers come from such warm parents? Because they were allowed to be that way, most likely, allowed to be whoever they wanted to be. Maybe Anthea wasn't one to judge parental relationships past the age of fourteen. Steel eyes met chocolate with a cool expression. "Anthea, you were only to get them settled." Anthea opened her mouth to respond with something about being kidnapped when, sitting back down next to her, Mrs. Holmes waved her son off.

"Oh, shush you, we were just talking." Mycroft eyed both of his parents carefully, folding his arms across his chest, not moving from where he was standing.

"Talking, hmm?" He raised his eyebrow.

"Sharing some photos…" Siger muttered with a naughty smile and that shine in his eyes that Anthea loved so much in his sons. Anthea had never seen Mycroft go pale before but in that moment, as his eyes reached hers, she would have sworn he was a few shades lighter. Anthea grinned at him, tilting her head to the side.

"You were so cute, all teenaged and awkward." She crinkled her nose as she smiled. Mycroft rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

"Fantastic." He muttered. A quick rub of his temple before his hand was returned to his side. "Thank you Anthea, I believe you should be heading back to the office now." If she didn't know any better Anthea would have sworn that Mycroft Holmes was feeling flustered as he kept that cold expression that seemed to do nothing to his parents. Before Anthea got a chance to answer her boss Mrs. Holmes changed the subject.

"Did you tell Sherlock about dinner tonight, sweetheart?" She looked from her tea up to her son, broad kind smile. Mycroft pulled on his cufflink and shook his head.

"No," he began. "We're most likely to gain an audience with Sherlock if we merely turn up at his flat unannounced." Siger Holmes 'mmm'ed in response, nodding slowly in approval.

"A three person ambush so he can't get away." He contemplated. Mycroft nodded once, raising his eyebrows, the edge of his mouth twisting into a hint of a smug smile.

"Precisely." Just as quickly as his mother changed the subject, Mycroft changed it back. His cool eyes back onto his assistant. "Anthea, I believe I drew you away from your desk. Perhaps you should return to it." Placing the cup of tea down on a coaster and picking up her handbag, Anthea got up and nodded.

"Yes, sir." She said, walking over to him. Mrs. Holmes, or Violet as Anthea had learned, awed.

"'Yes, sir'. Listen, to that, honey." She said to her husband but looking over Mycroft and Anthea. Siger hummed in response. "So respectful and professional." Anthea fought hard not to blush, looking down at her feet with a smile. "Tell me, darling, do you have a boyfriend?"

"Mummy! That's highly inappropriate." Mycroft said in a tone that sounded awfully close to whining. Anthea laughed nervously, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, suddenly feeling like a kid meeting a friend's parents for the first time all over again.

"Now, Mycroft, I'm only asking a question!" She talked down at him, frowning. The warm smile returned as she looked at Anthea waiting for a response.

"Anthea, you don't have to answer that." Mycroft sighed. Anthea shrugged and waved it off like it was no big deal.

"Um, yeah, I'm kind of seeing someone at the moment." Anthea answered. "He's a lawyer." She hastily added as if looking for approval. As soon as it left her mouth Anthe frowned at her own tone. Mrs. Holmes 'tsk'ed in disappointment and Mr Holmes laughed, looking at the agitation on his son's face and the awkwardness on Anthea's.

"Oh, that's good for you, I suppose dear." She looked at her husband, shaking her head. "Pretty, funny and intelligent. Those ones are hard to find, they get snatched up so quickly."

"Like how I got you." Siger lent over, placing a hand on his wife's knee. She smiled warmly and waved him off, attention back on Anthea.

"Your mother must be so proud of you." Anthea went slightly cold. Mycroft turned around and walked a few paces back, hand to his forehead, before turning back around.

"Honestly _Mother_, I thought you were the genius."

"Oh, what could I have possibly done wrong now, Myc?" Anthea shrugged and shook her head.

"No, sir, it's fine. It happens a lot." She put on a careful smile as she answered the question. "My parents have been no longer with us for a long time, Mrs. Holmes." Mycroft's parents locked eyes, having a silent conversation, before Violet got up walked over and pulled Anthea into a hug, rubbing her back softly.

"I am so sorry, dear." She cooed.

"It's ok, it's a normal question. No big deal." Anthea tried to laugh it off, finding herself reciprocating the hug. Mrs. Holmes held Anthea out at arm's length, looking into her eyes.

"Next mother's day or father's day, dear, you're more than welcome to come to our place." She pulled Anthea back into a hug and as she did Anthea heard Mycroft click his tongue in disapproval. "Everyone needs a home cooked meal once in a while." Anthea laughed, hugging the woman back.

"Thank you very much for the offer, Mrs. Holmes." She said as she freed herself. "Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to the office. If I fall behind my boss will probably kill me." She laughed nervously. Siger got out of his seat.

"I'll walk you out, dear." Once they shut the front door they heard the tell-tale sounds of Mycroft arguing with his mother. Anthea snorted and smiled and Mr Holmes shook his head with an amused glean in his eyes.

"They love each other, really." Mr Holmes laughed, hands in his pants pockets.

"Oh, I don't doubt that." Anthea nodded. "I've seen Mycroft and Sherlock together." Mr Holmes laughed, raising his eyebrows.

"Then you understand." When they reached Anthea's car she turned to face Siger Holmes with an honest smile.

"Your children are amazing." Mr. Holmes patted her on the shoulder and nodded.

"I think so, too."

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><p>The next day at work began as usual, with Anthea and the usual Mr. Holmes exchanging pleasantries, and Anthea giving him a cup of tea. The difference today, however, was as she reached the office door, she turned around, leant on the doorframe and observed Mr Holmes, a smile on her face. She watched as he focused on his folder, picking up the cup of tea without having to look at it and thinking about how his parents had called him a creature of habit. He was, that was where she always put the tea down, and that's how he could pick it up without any attention lost. His steel eyes caught her still watching him. Leaning back in his chair, he gestured at her with the pen still in his hand.<p>

"What is this?" He asked with a frown. "What is this look of yours? I've never seen this look before." Anthea let her smile widen as she shrugged.

"I don't know, sir." She hummed, tilting her head to the side. "Just thinking about how much I liked your parents." Mycroft scoffed in response, attention immediately back onto his file.

"Please, take them." He said. "Have Sherlock too, heaven knows my life would be far simpler." Anthea laughed and turned to leave.

"I'll forward you the emails I received from our CIA correspondence as soon as I'm finished scheduling next month's meetings, sir." She said as she left the room.

"Yes, thank you, my dear."

_Click_. She shut the office door.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. Once again I'd like to take a moment to thank all my guest reviewers since I can't thank you personally: Wink (as always), Ashley, and Guest Corrine: Your reviews are well appreciated.**


	17. The First Time They Played Deductions

**Author's Note:**** Guys, I am absolutely and completely humbled and astounded at the feedback from last chapter. Thank you so much to each and every one of you who reviewed, and to any new readers who favourite-d and subscribed. The fact that you loved it, I'm just so pleased! I hope you all appreciate this chapter just as much because this one is a particular favourite of mine, I enjoyed writing it just as much as last chapter. You guys are amazing so please continue you to read, review, and most importantly enjoy!**

**Disclaimer:**** Clearly I don't own Sherlock. The show is the baby of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, while Sherlock Holmes itself is the creation of Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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><p><span><strong>The First Time They Played Deductions<strong>

Mycroft and Anthea sat on the wooden park bench, coats and gloves on, a hot tea each in hand, watching the people in the park that was just beginning to be covered in snow. The grass still shone through light patches of snow that didn't quite cover the entire ground yet. Mycroft had just met some sketchy person or another here that was connected to some other sketchy but powerful person and Anthea, being told to stay out of sight but not the venture too far away in case something happened or she was needed, had taken the opportunity to go get the pair something warm to drink. There was a half an hour break in the schedule and Anthea was in no rush to get back to the list of emails that was – at this period of time – slowly starting to become more and more invitations to events that Mycroft would certainly not attend. Anthea had already developed a program on how to deal with such invitations. First of all she looked at who was hosting. If the host was moderate or higher priority she opened the invitation. If the invitation not just some flimsy party or holiday event but was also for some sort of important cause or involved some political gain she'd then check the guest list. If the guest list had enough high priority people or people that they required information on, the invitations were given to Mr Holmes with a list of these details. If Mr. Holmes felt it necessary to go then she'd accept on his behalf. So far one event had met all the criteria.

"Alright, Anthea." Anthea – being pulled out of her thought tangent - looked over her left shoulder at her boss, legs folded, arms crossed, watching the people in the park carefully with his blue eyes that seemed bluer than usual thanks to the grey sky in comparison taking away that steely sharpness. "Care to demonstrate for me those skills you apparently picked up in a _theatre_ classroom?" Anthea sniffed – a sort of laugh like noise – in response, looking towards the laughing people herself with her own chocolate eyes.

"I'm not going to play deductions with you, sir. I don't have 'being made a fool of' written into my planner for today." She tucked a loose curl behind her ear and out of the corner of her eye could see that mocking smile as Mycroft looked down his long nose at her.

"Come now, my dear. Wow me with your thespian skills." Anthea looked over once more and met blue with brown, silently debating the challenge for a moment. Was this the proverbial fiddle competition with the devil, to play deductions with the great Mycroft Holmes? Was he counting on her utter defeat in order to claim her soul? Or perhaps it was just two people passing the time before they had to return to the trenches. She cleared her throat and leant forward, accepting the game, looking for a somewhat easy target.

"Okay then, the young couple." She spoke with confidence.

"Which one?" His voice came with the same level of calm and underhanded mockery it always did. Anthea nodded in front of her to the girl with the mousy brown hair in the long grey jacket and pink beanie and the dark haired young man in the letterman jacket who were smiling sheepishly at each other as they sat on their knees and tried to make snowballs out of the small patch of snow in front of them. It was childish and silly but neither of that couple seemed to care.

"She looks my age, he looks straight out of university."

"Still in university, my dear. He took a gap year." Anthea turned her head to look at her boss again. He was fiddling with the plastic lid on the take away tea, not even looking towards the pair Anthea had chosen. Mr. Holmes had probably sussed them out long ago. "The shoes are from France and he's styled his hair in a fashion not generally popular with people of that age bracket. Practically screams 'I'm far more worldly than you because I wasted a year trying to find myself'." Anthea didn't laugh but a smile did cross her painted lips as she looked back towards the duo. As what always happened, after Mycroft pointed out something about someone Anthea could all of a sudden see it as plane as the nose on their face. Well now, it was her turn to play. She bit the inside of her bottom lip and tilted her head to the side, taking a moment to watch the couple for a moment longer.

"Their relationship is new but they've known each other for a long time." Anthea stated calmly. She heard a hum noise come from her boss. It wasn't exactly a hum of approval but it was far from negative sounding – perhaps just curious.

"Care to elaborate?" Yes, he was definitely curious, Anthea knew that texture in his voice way too well. Mycroft's tone was still detached but ever so slightly brighter – he was enjoying this or at the very least amused. Watching the couple again as the girl took a careful step away, Anthea tilted her head.

"Well sir, they're very clearly familiar with each other. There's an affection in their eyes and their smiles that wouldn't be there unless you've known each other for a long time, unless you know them like the back of your hand. They laugh easily but it's not too nervous – just a little. The nerves are probably because this is new – you can tell by the distance she's keeping from him. She's not too eager to rush. Maybe she's afraid of ruining a great friendship." She leant back on the bench with a soft shrug and took a long sip of her tea, now cool enough to drink, enjoying the warmth down her throat. Cool days and warm drinks, this was the perfect time to be outside.

"Nice attempt, my dear." Mycroft hummed, a tight lipped smile on his long features, his eyes fixed on the couple in questions. "Very well done indeed, but not quite correct." Of course, she was expecting that. Once again Anthea did not reply. She took out her blackberry to check for any messages before returning her gaze to her boss, searching his eyes. This was her silent cue for his elaborations. "You did well to note the distance that she is keeping but it is not due to this being a new relationship. For example look at their hands." The couple were walking away, hands locked together but held at a distance, both arms outstretched. "She wants to let him in but is stopping herself from doing so." It was Anthea's turn to hum.

"I see," She breathed. "She's afraid." From the corner of her eye she saw the smallest of nods. Anthea felt like a student picking up a lesson quite quickly, pleasing the tutor.

"Indeed. The familiarity is because they have dated before. It was broken off and this is a second attempt." Anthea folded her legs and tilted her head to the side as she evaluated the retreating couple. The distance between them now looking like they were oceans apart in her eyes.

"Ah, so he broke it off and went to party in France, leaving her here alone." She was rewarded by blue eyes looking her up and down – her own quick little deduction – her third for the day so far. The first was when she'd ignored a phone call from her boyfriend, the lawyer as he was referred to by present company, and the second was when he'd found her waiting for him on the bench with two hot teas.

"Precisely." Anthea and her boss sat quietly as they watched the couple walking off at an awkward distance, hands locked together. Anthea couldn't help but smile to herself as she held her cooling tea against her cheek, taking the chill out of her face. What was making her smile, she wasn't sure.

"Well," She sighed, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, swapping her crossed legs. "I tried, sir." Mycroft's eyebrows raised and there was the faintest hint of a flicker in his eyes, one side of his mouth pulling upwards.

"You weren't atrocious, my dear." He humoured her, letting his own amusement shimmer through marginally. "Far better than many who make a career out of it." As they watched the couple disappear around the corner behind the large group of trees Anthea found herself thinking out loud.

"I wonder if they will last this time." Her voice was barely over a whisper, imagining what lay before the two strangers who were unwilling subjects in a game between intellect and assistant.

"For her sake I should hope not." Once again Anthea found herself compelled to look at her boss, her lips pushing into the lightest pout as she watched him. Mycroft too was looking at where the fleeting couple had last been in eyesight. He pulled out his own phone and checked the time. "He's commitment phobic and she's desperate for a child." Anthea made a noise that could be construed as a laugh. She placed the plastic take away tea container on the ground next to her feet.

"How do you know he's commitment phobic?"

"He ran away once, didn't he?" A silence fell over the duo. Mycroft and his brother, forever looking at people and making millions of deductions about their lives from a single look over. Sometime Anthea wondered what Mycroft saw when he first saw her, or what Sherlock had deduced when Anthea had refused to tell him her real name. She wondered what Mycroft thought when she'd ignored the lawyer's call today, or whenever she scoffed at a text from Jamie for good or bad reasons. Anthea titled her head in thought and spoke to her boss without turning to look at him.

"You probably researched my best friend, didn't you? Being my one real tie to society and all." She asked even though she knew the answer.

"Most certainly." The matter of fact reply that Anthea was expecting returned.

"Tell me then, why are we friends, sir?" She asked, half smiling. She heard a breath being let out – not quite a sigh.

"As trivial as opposites attract I'm afraid. A make-up artist and a personal assistant for a minor government official, it practically says it all right there in your career choices. She has an excitability and exuberance that you lack, and you possess a subtly and sophistication she lacks. There's far more to it than that, but it seems you even the scales, if you would." Anthea scoffed and rolled her brown eyes. "Not that you don't possess your own unique brand of exuberance, my dear." Was added at the last minute.

"Nice save." Anthea spoke with a genuine laugh. Mycroft nodded, accepting the comment.

"Thank you." Anthea briefly considered asking further questions but that was enough for her enjoyment. Instead she chose a new target. Edging closer to Mycroft, Anthea nodded over to the man and a little girl at the swing set. He was pushing her and while she was having fun he looked absolutely nervous.

"Step-father, mother's boyfriend, or actual father?" She asked Mycroft in a quiet voice. His lips pursed together as he looked them over.

"Actual father." No doubt in his voice, it still astonished her at times.

"Because the daughter looks so comfortable?" Anthea asked, a small crease in her brow as she watched the father and daughter. Mycroft nodded once.

"Among other reasons."

"Then why does he look so nervous?" She was looking over every detail of the man by the swings. His daughter was begging to be pushed higher and higher but he seemed hesitant to, trying to be gentle. "Does he not look after her often? Does he work away? Has she fallen off before?"

"Some form of accident under his care, I'd infer." Mycroft had lost interest and was now picking off imaginary lint from his burgundy tie. "Long enough ago that she seems to have forgotten, not so long ago that he has not." Anthea turned in the bench to look Mycroft up and down hard, a sly smile on her lips. He caught sight of her and raised an eyebrow.

"You can work out just about anything from anyone, can't you, sir? You and that brother of yours." She let her smile flash a bit of teeth, pushing that same lock of hair behind her ear again. Mycroft rolled those remarkably intelligent eyes of his and returned his focus to his tie.

"Anyone could, my dear, with practice and determination." It was Anthea's turn to raise an eyebrow. She rested her elbow on the back of the bench then rested her head against her fist. "Well," He looked over at Anthea, cocked an eyebrow and smiled, almost mirroring Anthea's facial expression. "Maybe not _anyone_. It does take some intelligence after all." His comment was rewarded with a giggle, her nose crinkling with the honest smile.

"Could they, and by 'they' I mean you, even read people like us? Sitting here with all these firewalls up?" Mycroft scoffed.

"A touch more difficult for the untrained eye, but it's certainly no grand feat." His tone of voice was always so even.

"Shall we give it a shot, sir?" This got his attention as he gave her a look of bewilderment – a constructed and false look, but one of bewilderment none the less.

"Analyse ourselves?" There was even astonishment in his voice. "One doesn't read into their selves, my dear, it could lead to all sorts of insecurities." Anthea sat frontwards on the bench again, looking at the people.

"Like you haven't done it before." Anthe laughed. "I don't mean go into detail, sir, I don't want us to start a therapy season in the middle of the park. I just want to look at what we're doing here." Finding a young man she got up and jogged up to him, taking her blackberry out of her pocket and unlocking it. "Excuse me," She said in her most sickeningly sweet voice she could muster. "Do you mind taking a photo of my friend and I, over there?" She pointed to the bench where Mycroft was looking at her absolutely aghast. That was an honest look if she ever did see one.

"Um, sure." The man's uncertain voice came. Anthea thanked him and handed him her phone and sat back down at the bench. She sat back where she was in the same position she'd been sitting in during this break. The man held the phone out and fiddled around for a bit. "Ok, smile." He said. Anthea waved her hand and shook her head.

"Don't expect him to smile, he doesn't do well with normal social activities." She was rewarded with a sniff of disdain from Mycroft and a nervous smile from the man. A few seconds later the flash went off. The man handed Anthea back her blackberry, she thanked him profusely and sat a bit closer to Mycroft to display the photo. There they were, both sitting on the bench, legs folded and Mycroft's arms crossed. Anthea had a small naughty smile on her face but the only sign of amusement on Mycroft's face was the raised eyebrows. "Well, sir?" She asked, "Tell me something about these two strangers." He gave Anthea a tired look as if to say _'really?'_ but then proceeded to look over the screen.

"Judging by their apparel they're both professionals –" he began but soon gloved fingers came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Are we really doing this, Anthea?"

"It's just a bit of fun, sir." Her laughter could be heard in her voice. Anthea cleared her throat and got back into the game. "Yeah, I'd say so. Lunch break then or something like that. There is a decent distance between them so I'd say this isn't a social gathering. They might be work colleagues." Mycroft's eyes widened as he inhaled deeply and shook his head, Anthea just rolled her eyes. "Come on sir, your turn."

"This is absurd, Anthea. What are we supposed to learn from doing this that we don't already know?" Anthea shrugged, her brow knotting slightly.

"I don't know. Probably nothing, sir. Humour me, I've been cramped in an office and I just want to play a game. This is your game, sir, I've compromised." She pursed her lips, searching his eyes. Mycroft took a moment, scanning Anthea before he huffed and turned back to image on Anthea's screen, Anthea followed suit.

"Definitely work colleagues. That being said, however, there is a familiarity and an ease being formed." Anthea tilted her head to the side.

"How so?" She asked, playing the role of unknowing observer very well. He nodded towards the phone.

"They both have very closed off body language, yes? Arms folded, legs crossed. However, look at how their language is closed off. Both of them are slightly turned in, folded leg more blocking the opposite direction than the other person. It suggests a slight willingness to let the other person in, shutting out the rest of the world." Anthea nodded.

"Ah yes, proxemics and body language, I learnt all about it from my _drama teacher_." Mycroft rolled his eyes. "Could the fact that he seems so closed off, giving an air of power and control, but the fact that he's clearly humouring her with this photo also show some form of consideration to his companion, sir?" Mycroft's head moved in an action that wasn't quite a nod but wasn't quite a head tilt either, it could be described as a form of shrug.

"Perhaps." Anthea looked at her boss with a small grin on her lips, eyes filled with mischief.

"Dare I say, he feels some form of _sentiment_?"

"Anthea I will fire you right here, right now and show you how sentimental I am." Mycroft's voice was quick and sharp – very much a warning – but no true malice hid under the words. Anthea held back a laugh as she locked her phone and furthered the distance between them on the bench. She'd clearly pinched that nerve of his, she'd only meant to touch it. Oh well, the game could have only lasted so long.

"Sorry sir, I got carried away, won't happen again." She did her best to keep her voice gentle but not getting rid of the playfulness. As if on cue the unmarked town car pulled up across the park. The pair got up, disposed of the plastic cups, and headed towards the car. Once in the car Anthea got began answering texts and emails on her phone – back to business as usual.

"Your theatre teacher didn't do too poorly of a job on your observation skills." Mycroft's calm tone came. "Next time we're in a cabinet meeting I'll ask you which officials you think are having affairs and how many with each other." No hard feelings then. One side of Anthea's mouth twitched into a smile as she focused on her phone.

"Sounds scandalous." She spoke into the front of her phone.

"Far more interesting than listening to them drivel on about an issue I gave them a solution to months prior." Anthea rolled her eyes as she continued to hold onto her private smile.

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><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>** I hope you enjoyed that one – it was a pleasure to write. Once again I'd like to thank my guest reviewers since I can't thank you personally; Corrine, Connie, uninvited, Wheezy8, and as always, Wink. Also thanks to ValkyrieDefender since I can't thank you personally either. Please feel free to review guys, I'd love the opportunity to thank you all for sticking around and reading this. I really appreciate it and am so glad you seem to love this as much as I do!**


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